The £100,000 contract was announced by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council as part of the £2.4m Nornex research project.
The Nornex project is looking to address ash dieback, which is threatening to devastate UK ash populations. EMR will screen a diverse collection of ash material gathered from across the UK to identify sources of resistant samples.
“The early identification of resistant ash trees of UK provenenace is important if genetic diversity is to be preserved in the natural landscape,” said an EMR tree geneticist.
