The latest MARS crop monitoring in Europe bulletin, published today, finds that hardening of winter cereals is delayed in much of Europe, which could leave them vulnerable to frost damage.

Hardening is the bio-physiological process whereby winter cereals gain low-temperature tolerance to withstand freezing conditions that occur during the winter dormancy period. Our model simulations indicate weak frost tolerance in most of the EU, except for some parts of Finland, Sweden and the Baltic States.

JRC scientists have assessed the influence of different primer and probe chemistries on the accuracy of digital PCR (dPCR) methods for the quantification of viral Ribonucleic Acid (RNA) using an influenza model. The study demonstrated that innovative reverse transcription digital PCR (RT-dPCR) requires careful evaluation of method performance and quality control, but has, under the condition that it is sufficiently well optimised, large potential for accurate quantification of viral RNA.