Views on new innovation fund sought by Defra

Agri-TechE Article

Agri-TechE

Farmers interested in adopting new technologies, processes and practices and innovators seeking funding, are invited to attend an event on 15th June being held by Agri-TechE , which includes discussion of a new accelerating adoption fund.
As set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan published in November, Defra is bringing in landmark changes as we move away from the CAP system of farming subsidy payments. A key part of the future farming approach is supporting innovation to help farmers and growers increase productivity and reduce the environmental impact of agriculture. From 2022 Defra will launch an Innovation R&D programme for agriculture in England.
Officials from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) will host a session at the Agri-TechE event to discuss ways to support and accelerate the adoption of innovative technology in the agricultural sector.
Accelerating adoption of technology

Leah Segal, Innovation R&D policy advisor at Defra, said: “We appreciate the risk involved in investing in innovation, and how it can be a barrier for farmers and growers looking to trial new ideas. We want to provide support and funding to ‘de-risk’ investment in innovation and help share knowledge on which innovations are worth adopting.”
The ‘Accelerating Adoption’ fund of the Defra Innovation R&D programme will be specifically aimed at farmer-led innovation.
The fund will provide facilitation and funding for farmers and growers to connect with each other, as well as with researchers and businesses, to trial innovative technologies, processes and practices on-farm.
These will be small agile projects up to 2 years, to test the feasibility of new technology and demonstrate new methods to the farming community.
These projects will be focused on finding practical solutions to immediate on-farm productivity challenges.

Two further funds

As set out in the Agricultural Transition Plan, two other funds will open to applicants next year. These will build on the positive response to the recent Farming Innovation Pathways competition developed by Defra and UKRI.
The first will be to encourage industry led research on large-scale projects to develop technology and innovative solutions to shared productivity challenges that affect businesses.
The second will support collaborative R&D where farming and agri-food businesses work with scientists and researchers to address longer-term societal challenges, such as Net Zero, and will have themes set by Defra.
The funding programme will also be underpinned by support for knowledge exchange between farmers, growers, businesses, and researchers, so that the results and learnings from the projects can be shared widely. This is critical to ensuring widespread adoption of novel and trialled innovative technologies, processes and practices which will then lead to real world benefits for farmers and growers.

Co-design of research programmes

As well as on-farm trials through the ‘accelerating adoption’ fund, farmers and growers will also be able to get involved in other projects by participating in project teams and co-designing research, outputs and plans for sharing results.
Leah gives the example, of the ‘REMEDY’ project (which stands for ‘REal tiME DairY’ and is funded through UKRI’s Transforming Food Production Defra Innovation R&D programme programme) as a project that has successfully involved farmers in the design and demonstration of a technology that tracks cow behaviour and nutrition to provide insights for decision-making.
Leah Segal said: “We are working closely with our other colleagues in Defra and UKRI to ensure there is a clear link between different schemes, so farmers and growers know where to look for support.
“For instance, if a technological solution – trialled through the Defra Innovation R&D funding programme – then becomes readily available on the market, there may be potential for farmers and growers to receive support to invest in the technology through follow-on schemes.
“The event on the 15th June is a good opportunity for users to learn more about the planned funding schemes, which are still being developed. We would also welcome further input of potential end users of the technology as we are currently co-designing the fund to ensure that it can provide the support that is needed for investment in innovation.”

Focus on Funding event

The Focus on Funding event is being held virtually and will have speakers from Defra, UKRI, Transforming Food Production, Innovate UK and the Knowledge Transfer Partnership.
This will be complemented by a Agri-TechE Business Plaza where a number of business support organisations: GrantTree, LMixology, MMP Tax, Rothamsted Enterprises, RSM, Trendlines – will be offering drop in clinics and discussing their services.
More information about the event Focus on Funding with the Agri-TechE Business Plaza
Tuesday 15th June @ 11:00 am – 3:00 pm
BACKGROUND TO THE LATEST FUNDING ANNOUNCEMENTS
The government’s Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund (ISCF) was launched in November 2017 to stimulate innovation.
The stream directed at agriculture is called Transforming Food Production (TFP) and it is managed by Innovate UK and UKRI.

Transforming Food Production

The Transforming Food Production challenge is supporting new ways to produce food that reduce emissions and pollution and contribute to feeding a growing world population.

Future food production systems – ongoing projects include technologies for creating alternative proteins from insects and waste gases, also innovation for vertical farming
Science and technology into practice – projects include new methods of automation and robotics and also improved diagnostics for animal diseases, and monitoring of soils
International opportunities – this is directed at export opportunities to Canada and China
Investment ecosystems – aimed at supporting the investment community invest in agri-tech

Roadmap announced

Subsequently the government announced its roadmap “The Path to Sustainable Farming: An agricultural transition plan 2021 to 2024” (November 2020). This plan covers the period when Direct Payments are being withdrawn to UK farmers. (Direct payments are granted to active EU farmers in the form of a per-hectare basic income support.)
The UK government will instead invest the money to pay farmers to improve the environment, animal health and welfare and reduce carbon emissions, alongside grants to improve productivity.
As part of the roadmap two funds were announced:

Farming Investment Fund (Equipment & Technology, and Transformation) to be launched April 2021
Defra’s Innovation R&D programme to be launched in 2022

Defra’s Innovation R&D Programme (to open 2022)

The Innovation R&D Programme has three funding aims, based on the following principles:

Industry-led syndicates – connecting farmers and growers with researchers and agri-food businesses to work on industry specific challenges
Themed collaborative R&D – brings together food businesses and researchers on more fundamental research
Accelerating Adoption – support for smaller-scale, farmer-led R&D projects to demonstrate the viability of new and existing technologies.

Farming Innovation Pathways
Farming Innovation Pathways is a bridge between Transforming Food Production (TFP) and the Defra Innovation R&D Programme, and it will be delivered by the TFP team that have been working closely with the agri-tech sector and include agricultural specialists.
The first competition closed in April and the applicants will be informed of the outcome on 18th June 2021 and projects will start in October 2021.
More information about the funding is available through the Future Farming blog https://defrafarming.blog.gov.uk/

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Every part Cannabis sativa – stalks, seeds, flowers and leaves – can be harvested and processed, making hemp a versatile plant with multiple uses. This means that a single crop has the potential to produce a wide range of products, including biomaterials, cosmetics, feed, food and supplements.
In addition the use of plant extracts, such as CBD, is growing worldwide and represents a major opportunity for growers to produce higher value crops.
Attendees had the opportunity to meet the key players across the value chain and learn more about what is involved in the broadacre and controlled environment production of hemp and cannabis, new variety development, processing solutions and needs, regulatory requirements and potential routes to market.
And, most importantly, how the business model could work and how – and in which directions – the money is going to flow.

You can find a summary report of the event here.

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It’s about time…

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“Have you got a minute?”
From the timing of input applications to predicting the date of harvest, extending the shelf-life of fresh produce and influencing the breeding cycles of crops and livestock, our industry is dominated by time.
Most of us don’t have enough of it, we want to save it, be less beholden to it, or even manipulate it to enable businesses or supply chains be more profitable or productive.

Changing Time(s) For Agriculture

Given the global pace of emerging innovations and technology with the potential to help the industry grab hold of time – and that time is, in fact, money – we believe it’s time we discussed Changing Time(s) For Agriculture.
As well as being the theme of REAP 2021, we’re going to take the idea to Groundswell Regenerative Agriculture Show and Conference, and talk to farmers about what aspect of time has the biggest impact on farming. And where should innovations in the future be directed to help influence time (or help generate more of it)?

Time to automate

It might be the more widespread automation of routine tasks and data collection and robotics to help save labour time, or using data to accurately forecast supply and demand to deliver a “just-in-time” supply chain for fresh produce.

In time with nature

Nature, of course, beats in time to its own rhythm. Plants and animals – and even fungi and bacteria – have internal “clocks” which influence processes – so understanding these better may help improve our management of them and interaction with them.
And then there are seasons which dictate so much of the operations around outdoor agriculture and horticulture – and this is where controlled environment agriculture liberates producers from the shackles of time, enabling multiple annual harvests in vertical farms, for example.
Many farmers – or even keen nature watchers – may have observed that harvests are now earlier, the arrival dates of migrant bird populations is changing and dormancy of perennial ornamentals is breaking at different times. So at REAP, we’re also going to be talking about how so-called agri-phenology (the study of the timing of key natural phenomena in agriculture) is being affected by climate change.
Take the time to consider innovation with us over the next six months and join us at REAP 2021.
It will be time well spent. We do hope if you’re at Groundswell you’ll take some time to visit stand MS6 and catch up with the team – we can’t wait to see you!

REAP 2021: Changing Time(s) for Agriculture – 10th November 2021

Imagine a world where agriculture is not constrained by time. The ability to manage and manipulate time is increasing and REAP 2021 will explore the advances in technology and breakthroughs in science that is making this possible.
REAP brings together people from across the agri-tech ecosystem who believe that innovation is the engine for change. The conference bridges the gap between producer needs and technology solutions and showcases exciting agri-tech start-ups.

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Smaller, faster, cheaper and more durable intelligent mobile robots will be possible with Antobot robotics technology, which offers twice the ‘brain’ power of commercially available mobile robots in a third of the size. It has recently secured £1.2 million in their seed funding round to help develop its mobile agriculture robot prototypes.
Antobot Ltd is a robotics technology company, with teams in Cambridge UK and China, which is focused on the control hardware and software development for intelligent mobile robots. It presented as part of the Start-Up Showcase at the Agri-TechE REAP 2020 conference.

Antobot’s robotics presented at REAP 2020

At the conference Antobot’s founder, Howard Wu, explained: “Our first commercial product will be a highly compact four-wheel-drive scouting robot capable of counting fruits and determining fruit ripeness and size, whilst also mapping fruiting locations in three dimensions to allow picking at a later stage.
“Small ground-based machines are able to fit into narrow spaces between plants to map fruit location in detail, and being light also prevents soil compaction. But the challenge of building very small robots is the requirement for a smaller control unit.
“Our universal Robot Control Unit (uRCU®) achieves twice as much ‘brain’ power as the current market leading mobile robot company, despite being just 1/3rd the size,” says Wu. “We also offer our uRCU to other robotics companies, to accelerate their robotics application development.”
The uRCU®’s sophisticated design combines the core hardware and advanced software for agri-robotic applications in one compact single unit.

Funding for fruit scouting robot

Funding from Intron Technology Holdings Ltd a leading automotive electronics solutions provider in China, will enable Antobot to develop various full applications using its modular platform, starting with its scouting robot, Insight.
Focusing initially on the £875 million UK fruit sector, Insight travels autonomously through the farm and, using artificial intelligence, gathers accurate, timely and rich data for deeper insight into crop yield, profile, and pest / disease management.
Unlike manual scouting or scouting using large heavy machinery, Insight is powered by renewable energy and does not require any labour. Working with a selection of partner farms in England, Insight will be trialled in UK fields this summer of 2021.
Eddie Chan, Co-CEO and Executive Director of Intron Technology says. “We are strongly committed to Research and Development at Intron, particularly when promoting sustainability. And we are looking forward to working with Antobot, learning from each other, and helping Antobot grow into the leading force in the agricultural robotics sector we know it can be”
Dr Belinda Clarke, Director of Agri-TechE , says: “In the crowded agri-robotics market, Antobot is focussing on affordability and providing a platform solution to differentiate itself. It’s particularly exciting to see the application of expertise from other sectors into agriculture and the company is ground-truthing the potential application with farmers.”
Find out more about Antobot on their member page.

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Bovine TB and Johne’s Disease are two devastating livestock diseases and control has been limited by the lack of accurate diagnostics. In the 2018 Innovation Hub, PBD Biotech announced the development of Actiphage^®, an accurate and specific blood test that offers hope for eradicating Bovine TB.

Diagnostic testing is strictly regulated and Actiphage has gained approval from the APHA for use as a non-validated test for use in herds with a chronic breakdown. PBD Biotech has recently gained funding to take it through World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) validation.

Control of Bovine TB

This news has been well received by farmers and vets as it will give them a tool to use within an effective disease management programme
“From an industry perspective bovine tuberculosis is a huge problem – the disease continues to move across the UK, and we don’t appear to be getting on top of it. We need many more tools in the toolbox in order to help us manage and eradicate this disease,” says David Christensen of Kingston Hill Farm Ltd, a family-owned farming company operating dairy and beef farming enterprises in the Thames Valley, to the west of Oxford. He has a herd of 2,000 animals. Christensen is concerned about the failure of the industry to control and eradicate bovine tuberculosis (bTB). He says: “There is a combination of factors, but a key challenge is a lack of decent testing of the animals in our herds. The current tests are unable to accurately identify those at an early stage of the disease, before they become infectious, so that they can be removed.
“The other main concern is the lack of a vaccine. I am proactive about herd health and vaccinate my cattle against a range of other diseases, so if there was an effective vaccine for bovine TB I would use it.”
Actiphage^® is a new rapid blood or milk test for the mycobacteria that cause bovine TB, Johne’s Disease and human TB. It identifies live mycobacteria and so can distinguish between vaccinated and infected animals, a pre-requisite for a vaccine. It is currently going through trials to take it through to OIE validation. Christensen welcomes this development: “I welcome the diversity of tests coming forward – although I’m no expert, I expect they will all have a role in some capacity – the more we’ve got, the better because then we can tailor the tools to each on-farm situation.”
The official skin test measures the immune response that develops after an animal has been exposed to bTB. This response takes time to develop and it is known that up an average of 20-25% of TB-infected cattle can be missed by one round of skin testing using standard interpretation – leaving a reservoir of disease in the herd.

Eradicating Bovine TB

Actiphage can be used to retest those animals where there has been some reaction to the skin test but not sufficient for them to be classified as positive and culled. Christensen sees promise in this approach.
“We’ve had animals that are not officially inconclusive but there’s been some bovine TB reaction. We’ve used Actiphage to test those animals, and then made a decision about the animals based on those results.
“Actiphage told us that those animals were carrying bTB, so those animals were then removed from the herd.
“However, the problem at the moment is that if you use Actiphage to make the decision to cull then you don’t get any compensation – so we lost the value of the cows.” The hope within the industry is that through validation by OIE it will be possible to use Actiphage in parallel with other tests, to increase knowledge about the disease.
Christensen continues: “With better information about the progression of the disease it might be possible to develop a management strategy based on the information that a test can give. For instance, we could proactively remove animals before they became infectious and thus reduce the overall disease pressure in the herd – but all that is yet to be proven, which is why the validation is so important.
“Another unknown is the risk to the calves of cows that have tested positive. An accurate and reliable diagnostic would allow us to test the offspring from TB reactors and see if they were carrying the disease. With more information you could develop a strategy – perhaps to use through targeted application with certain animals to get greater information about their TB status.”
PBD Biotech are participating in the Agri-TechE express meeting ‘Heartbreak and hope – the story of a new diagnostic for bovine TB’ on Tuesday 6th July from 10-11 am.

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This blog has kindly been written by James Fortune who is an HKEP PhD student at University of Hertfordshire investigating the interactions between Leptosphaeria maculans (phoma stem canker) and Pyrenopeziza brassicae (light leaf spot) on Brassica napus (oilseed rape).
I attended the Young Innovators’ forum visit to RAGT Seeds on 27 May in Ickleton nr, Cambridge. The event started with a warm welcome and introduction about the company by Dr Cathy Hooper, technical sales manager, and Mr Tom Dummett, OSR & Cereals Manager. They explained the name RAGT is an acronym of four regions in southern France, Rouergue, Auvergne, Gevaudan and Tarnais, from where the company has is origins; it is from these origins that the company’s key morals were outlined as a company “Run by farmers for farmers”; this was highlighted when Dr Hooper told us that the founding families still remain shareholders on the company’s board.
We moved over to the wheat variety trial plots where Dr Hooper and Mr Dummett provided an overview of how they whittle down over 2 million progeny of a cross to less than 10 varieties using high-throughput sequencing, using QTL’s (quantitative trait loci) that is a region of DNA that is associated with a particular phenotypic trait, ie disease resistance. In addition to these high throughput molecular methods, the company uses vernalisation cabinets and single seed descent analysis in controlled conditions to enable them to produce multiple generations of a crop to within a typical 10 month growing season. It is this ability to speed up the breeding process to develop new varieties ready to be placed into national list testing within 5-8 years. The national list testing is a legal requirement for new plant varieties if you would like to market them for commercial purposes. This is to ensure that crops are; Distinct – it has different characteristics to other varieties, Uniform – all plants in the variety must share the same characteristics, and Stable – it remains unchanged after ‘repeated propagation’. If the variety passes through the national list testing then it can be sold as a commercial variety, a cultivar. Every year the AHDB produces a list of cultivars that it recommends, and this is very important as cultivars on this list form a majority of the seed sales for the following season, therefore it is of great economic importance for breeders to get their new cultivars on the list, so the most promising new cultivars are entered into AHDB recommended list trials for assessment against other cultivars on the list for where a panel of experts and stakeholders in the agricultural community will decide whether the new cultivar offers something new, or performs well enough to warrant a place on the recommended list. We also received information about the different groups of wheat and their intended uses for example RAGT’s variety Skyfall that is a Group 1 wheat meaning that it will produce consistent milling and baking performance.
We then moved onto the main reason for my visit; to see RGT Wolverine – Europe’s first BYDV resistant wheat. I was not disappointed. We were able to go into the field trial and look at plots of RGT Wolverine against other more susceptible commercially available wheat cultivars. It was here that the strength and power of this cultivar was truly showcased. The plots of RGT Wolverine were visually more uniform in height because the comparison cultivar plots were undulated with areas of stunting. Mr Dummett showcased the severity of the BYDV in the more susceptible comparison cultivar plots that showed the yellowing-red of lower leaves in comparison to the much cleaner and disease-free leaves of RGT Wolverine. This was one of the benefits of going to see these plot trials at events like this the Young Innovators’ forum visit to RAGT Seeds as it gives you the opportunity to see these differences in the flesh and the trust that the comparison leaves and plants have not been cherry picked or exaggerated. These differences were seen at GS 39, so I would imagine that they would be starker when the wheat is in ear. Seeing the differences in BYDV severity showcased how important this breakthrough is for European plant breeding. This will not only allow growers to save on the chemical costs by reducing their insecticide applications on the farm, it will also be more desirable to millers and the end user due to reduced chemical residues and a more environmentally sustainable method of wheat production. This exemplifies the company focus on ensuring innovation ambition and a spirit of competition to remain ahead of the game.
We finished the visit by looking at the demonstration plots of the cover crops and the differences. There were many different compositions and mixes, but the main overriding message was to select the correct cover crop for your land you need to identify what the desired outcome you want to achieve is. For example you wouldn’t use the same cover crop mix to increase the nitrogen, using nodulating crops, as you would to deter insect pests, using biofumigants, as you would to reduce weeds, using fast growing and area covering plants that would die off after a cold winter. The benefits of using cover crops was displayed when viewing another of the trial plots that had previously used as cover crop trial area. This new field trial design had been sown over the previous trial plant and there were clear distinguished separation within this new field plot design showing benefits of the previous cover cropping.
Overall, this event was very beneficial for me as I was able to directly observe how knowledge is translated from research to the agricultural industry and provided me with real inspiration for my own research to understand how a break though in the lab, such as identification of a QTL for BYDV resistance can have such a large impact on the European industry like new innovations such as RGT Wolverine. Additionally, it was my first opportunity to meet new people and network with fellow individuals with an interest in the UK agricultural industry from outside my research group since the COVID – 19 pandemic.
I would like to thank Dr Cathy Hooper and Mr Tom Dummett from RAGT Seeds Ltd for taking the time to organise such a smooth, informative and interesting event. I look forward to attending more Young Innovators’ forum visits and events in the future.

Book future YIF events here:

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Yewdall appointed to PBD Biotech — Johnnie Yewdall sees potential of Actiphage to break the cycle of bTB

Jonnie Yewdall, a former dairy farmer, has been appointed Commercial Director at PBD Biotech. The company recently gained funding to take its Actiphage® blood test for bovine TB (bTB) and Johne’s Disease through the validation required for international industry acceptance.
Jonnie will be talking about his experiences and development of the Actiphage test at the Agri-TechE event ‘Heartbreak and hope – the story of a new diagnostic for bovine TB’

Devastation of bTB

Jonnie has worked in a commercial role in other industries, but he knows first-hand the devastating impact bTB and Johne’s disease can have on farmers through his experiences on a family farm in North Devon, where the herd was decimated by these diseases.

He lost a third of his Guernsey herd following a positive bTB test, and then the replacement animals began to show signs of Johne’s Disease, another mycobacterial disease. Unfortunately, this was the final straw. The emotional toil and the ongoing financial loss were too great and the Yewdalls sold the family farm.

Don’t want other farmers to go through same experience

Jonnie says: “I think that Covid-19 has shown the wider business community what it is like to be a dairy farmer at risk from bTB – you are locked-down and you can’t plan or budget.

“I don’t want any farmers to go through what we did, which is why I have joined PBD Biotech. With tools like Actiphage the industry has an opportunity to work together to potentially eradicate these very difficult diseases.”

Actiphage is an extremely specific test, as it detects the DNA from live bacteria in a sample of blood or milk, not just the animal’s immune reaction. It can detect just a few cells; this enables farmers to identify carriers of the disease and remove them from the herd before they become spreaders. This was a recent recommendation from the cattle health certification standards regulatory body Checs.

Actiphage has been approved by APHA for use under special conditions, and when used on-farm as part of a disease management programme it has been proven to eradicate bovine TB.

Supports farms gain bTB disease free status

By recently gaining £2.3M of funding, PBD Biotech is now able to take Actiphage through trials to gain OIE (the World Organisation for Animal Health) validation for the test which will enable international acceptance.

Jonnie sees potential for Actiphage to be used as part of a wider disease management programme to enable farmers to eradicate and then maintain a disease-free status on the farm.

“Actiphage is a blood test for live mycobacteria that gives you a simple yes/no answer. When this is authorised for use on the farm, we could use it in parallel with the statutory testing to manage the infection risk, for example isolating inconclusive reactors pending a further skin test,” he says.

“It could be used as a ‘pre-movement’ test to check animals before they are introduced into a herd and also as a ‘DIVA’ test to differentiate infected from vaccinated animals, paving the way for the introduction of a vaccination programme.”

Agri-TechE event

Jonnie will be talking about his experiences and development of the Actiphage test at the Agri-TechE event ‘Heartbreak and hope – the story of a new diagnostic for bovine TB’ on Tuesday 6^th July 2021, from 10am-11am.

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The UK’s first factory to convert potatoes into functional plant-based protein for vegetarian and vegan foods is being made possible following the development of a new extraction process by B-hive Innovations in collaboration with potato suppliers Branston.

Plant-based protein from potato

Lincoln-based B-hive Innovations develops new technologies for the fresh produce industry. Its new extraction process offers the potential to use potatoes in new ways. In addition to the plant-based protein the process also generates a starch co-product that has a range of applications.

Alison Wright, R&D project manager at B-hive Innovations, said: “The process enables gentle extraction of food-grade functional protein that is free from allergens. Market research revealed there was a growing demand for UK-grown, clean-label, 100% plant-based ingredients, highlighting a commercial need that fitted perfectly with Branston’s drive to utilise all harvested crop.”

The technology is part of a collaborative project with potato suppliers Branston. Construction of the new £6m protein facility has started at the Branston headquarters in Lincolnshire

Branston supports new technologies

Branston is one of the UK’s leading suppliers of potatoes for retail and wholesale and provides seed for potato growers. Working closely with its producer groups across its three sites at Lincoln, Scotland and the South West, Branston is supporting the development and adoption of new technologies.
This includes HarvestEye, a unique system that provides insights on root crops during harvest, that was highly commended in industry awards.

HarvestEye accurately measures potato size, count and crop variation, giving instant insight on marketable yield, ensuring producers get the best price for their harvest.

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The first frost activates the timing of flowering

Research Digest

Agri-TechE

The first frost of autumn is shown to activate the timing of flowering, research at the John Innes Centre has found.

It is known that, for some varieties, exposure to an extended period of cold ‘vernalization’ is a preparation for flowering in spring.
The gene FLC creates a brake on flowering and its action is controlled by a molecule called COOLAIR. Researchers compared natural types of Arabidopsis grown in different climates (Norfolk, south Sweden, subarctic north Sweden) and measured the levels of COOLAIR.
COOLAIR levels varied among different accessions and different locations. However, the researchers spotted that when temperature first dropped below freezing there was a peak in COOLAIR. Dr Yusheng Zhao, co-first author of the study, said: “Our study shows the first seasonal frost serves as an important indicator in autumn for winter arrival and helps to explain how plants sense environmental signals to align flowering with spring.”
To confirm this boosting of COOLAIR after freezing the researchers did experiments in temperature-controlled chambers which simulated the temperature changes seen in natural conditions.
They found COOLAIR expression levels rose within an hour of freezing and peaked about eight hours afterwards. There was a small reduction in FLC levels immediately after freezing too, reflecting the relationship between the two key molecular components.
Next, they found a mutant Arabidopsis which produces higher levels of COOLAIR all the time, even when it is not cold, and low levels of FLC. When they edited the gene to switch off COOLAIR they found that FLC was no longer suppressed, providing further evidence of this elegant molecular mechanism.
The study offers insight into the plasticity in the molecular process of how plants sense temperatures, which may help plants adapt to different climates, and could be translatable to improving crops at a time of climate change.
The study: Natural temperature fluctuations promote COOLAIR regulation of FLC appears in Genes & Development.

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Is per plant robotic weeding the answer to blackgrass?

Meet the Network

Agri-TechE

The world’s first ‘per plant weeding’ service has been demonstrated by the Small Robot Company (SRC), its first customer is the Lockerley Estate, where robots are a key part of a regenerative farming strategy.
The service uses two robots, Tom a scanning robot and weeding prototype and ‘Dick’ that zaps individual weeds with electrical ‘lightning strikes’, using no chemicals. On-farm pilots of the service will commence this autumn.
In future, Tom will also gather data from multiple sources, such as sensors and microphones for birdsong and pollinators, to assess soil health and biodiversity.
The ‘Dick’ robot prototype deploys RootWave non-chemical weeding technology mounted on an igus delta robotic arm to zap the weeds.
“To prove the power of per plant farming we are focusing on answering the biggest problem that farmers face at the moment which is weeding,” said Ben Scott-Robinson, CEO and co-founder, Small Robot Company.
“We’ve now proved we can deliver per plant weeding: a world first. The focus for us now is being able to move forward to deliver this, repeatedly, and at scale. This will be game-changing.”

Black grass costing a fortune

“Weeds, especially black grass, are crippling. It’s costing the industry a fortune,” commented Craig Livingstone, Lockerley Estate farm manager and National Food Strategy advisory panel. “Resistance to herbicides is the number one problem. The robot offers us a real chance to stop using artificial inputs, which goes towards our regenerative model of farming.”
Rob Macklin, the National Trust’s Head of Farming and Soils, agreed: “Technology needs to play a big part in solving many of the issues we currently face in farming – particularly improving soil health and carbon sequestration, reducing our reliance on fossil fuel power and fertilisers and avoiding the adverse impacts of synthetic chemicals on the environment. We have started small robot trials at Wimpole and intend to extend trials to other estates in the near future.

Tom Small Robot Company — Tom scanning robot is commercially available

Tom is now delivered to commercial specification, ready for ramp up of the service to more than 100 farms in 2023.
Other benefits from the mapping service include yield predictions, measurement of herbicide efficacy, and giving farmers the ability to take “no spray” decisions with confidence. The first crop for the service is wheat. SRC is now working on being able to recognise different weed species, with the next phase being multiple crop types. It has also just started a project to be able to detect disease in wheat.
Tom will cover 20 hectares per day autonomously, collecting about 6 terabytes of data in an 8 hour shift, and detecting millions of data points per field. As an example, Tom collected 12.7 million plants in a single 6 hectare field, of which 250,000 were identified as weeds.
He can distinguish plant details at submillimetre resolution, with less than one millimetre per pixel resolution on the ground. He is robust and weather-proof and can be used all year round. The next generation Tom also incorporates increased speed, 5K camera capacity and extended battery life.

Small Robot Company

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One death every two weeks on UK farms innovative solutions to be launched at meeting

Agri-TechE Article

Agri-TechE

34 people died on-farm in the UK during the last 12 months (HSE March 2021), with the greatest risk coming from machinery, working at a height or with livestock. Innovations to improve on farm safety are to be announced at an Agri-TechE event on 24th May, including a machinery audit activated by QR code, an innovative risk assessment tool, and motion sensor alerts for moving machinery.
Agri-TechE director Dr Belinda Clarke comments: “One of the consequences of Covid-19 is that more people are using digital technologies for a greater range of applications. This creates a huge opportunity for making safety and compliance part of the culture on-farm. It would be possible to embed safety into the workplace by making it easy to access timely information, record incidents as they happen and set up alerts to danger.” At the event – ‘Improving Farm Safety with Innovative Agri-Tech’ – Farm365 is to launch a machinery safety and audit app that is triggered by scanning a QR code located on the equipment; Safe Ag Systems will preview a free interactive risk assessment tool that enables compliance with ISO31000; and Pathfindr are to discuss a wearable that alerts the user to moving machinery.
To hear more on how farm tech can play a role in preventing injury and death, join speakers Katy Landt, CEO of Safe Ag Systems, Elizabeth Creed, CEO of Farm365, Ben Sturgess, Founder and CTO of Pathfindr, and Stuart McClimont, Technical and Standards Director at the Agricultural Engineers Association, with chair Ben Turner, Director of Ben Burgess, for the Agri-TechE event: ‘Improving Farm Safety with Innovative Agri-Tech’ on Monday 24th May at 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm.

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A trait based regulatory framework could release benefits of blight resistance

Research Digest

Agri-TechE

Adoption of a trait based regulatory framework, rather than one based on technology, may enable genetically improved potatoes to be made available in the UK. This was discussed within an interview with Professor Jonathan Jones of TSL (The Sainsbury Laboratory)
Blight is a major disease of potatoes. Maris Piper, one of the most popular varieties of potato is susceptible to this fungal disease which is controlled by 15 -20 agrochemical sprays every year.

In 2016 approval was given for development of a blight-resistant variety of Maris Piper and this has resulted in PiperPlus. The new variety is resistance to late blight and also has additional qualities to reduce losses during storage.
However, under current regulations PiperPlus will not be available in UK supermarkets anytime soon as it is classified as genetically modified (GM). This terminology was adopted before some of the recent technologies were developed. So there is an argument that varieties that are enhanced with genes from species within the same genus – in this case the family Solanum – should be treated differently.
Professor Jones explains that the future of PiperPlus depends on the outcomes of a recent consultation on genetic technologies conducted by DEFRA.
He said: “These potatoes are currently classified as GM, making them unlikely to ever reach the UK market, not least because of the high cost associated with the current regulations.”

Cisgenetics is also powerful but has fewer ethical concerns

There is a chance that this may change. Secretary of State, George Eustice, said in his address to the Oxford Farming Conference in January 2021, ” However, what we have learned since that initial GM debate is that cisgenesis – where traits are moved within a species or genus of plant – is also powerful, but raises far fewer ethical or biological concerns”.
Professor Jones continues: “The adoption of a trait-based regulatory framework, rather than a technological one, would allow the benefits of each line to be assessed on a case-by-case basis.
“Once any changes to the UK regulations have been made, it might take 5 year for lines like ours to become available for producers and consumers.
“It would then be important to ensure that each crop is properly labelled to enable consumer choice. In the case of PiperPlus, for example, it would be the choice between one line that requires spraying with a lot of agrochemicals and another that requires far fewer agrochemical applications.”
For the full interview please visit to the TSL website.

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Eradicating Bovine TB – new tool shows promise

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