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Top tips for farmers investing in agri-tech
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
Top tips for farmers planning agri-tech investments are outlined in a new report compiled by NFU Mutual.
Lyndon Farm Diversification
Fast developing agri-tech, from robotic pickers to fitness trackers for cows, has the potential to make UK farms more profitable while benefiting the environment, but the report warns that political uncertainty and worries over future government support for agriculture is holding back investment in the latest technological developments.
Fang Wang, is an NFU Mutual business analyst, is part of an NFU Mutual team that has researched the implications of agri-tech for farmers and global agriculture.
She said: “New agri-technology is set to make a major impact on farm profitability and even world prices. However, in the UK, adoption of new technology is currently slow because of uncertainty over agricultural policy and support, lack of understanding, shortage of capital and concerns about the reliability of first-generation technology.”
NFU Mutual research found that only 4% of farmers had already invested in autonomous tractors, while 12% were planning to invest or were yet to decide.
Fang added, “While entirely understandable, this hesitancy is putting UK farmers at risk of falling behind other nations in the race for efficient, environmentally-friendly food production.”
Fang, who has also worked in the automation industry and conducted studies on global insurance markets, recommends that farmers take a ‘whole of farm’ approach to planning future agri-tech investment to ensure new systems integrate with other parts of the farm management system.
The report’s top tips for farmers planning agri-tech investment are:
Take a long-term approach – start by reviewing the farm’s strategy and then identify how technology and using detailed data could help you achieve your goals
Explore technology systems that integrate not only the farm’s activities but also its supply chain, creating opportunities for farmers, food processors and retailers to work together
Keep up to date with developments and ensure you have the management skills to adopt technology and successfully master the opportunities available from data-based farming
Consider working with other farms, as co-operation can help achieve economies of scale both in the use of new technology and the adoption of a farmer-friendly supply chain
Farm data is a valuable asset – recognise its value and be very careful who you share it with
More information from the NFU Mutual’s website: nfumutual.co.uk/agri-tech
Post Overview
27th January 2020
Agri-TechE
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-Tech Adoption & Social Science
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Creating a vineyard in Norfolk
Meet the Network
Agri-TechE
Ben Witchell of Flint Vineyards will be sharing experiences of setting up a vineyard
Adrian Hipwell is a Norfolk farmer, a chance e-mail from a young couple passionate about wine created an exciting opportunity for diversification. Ben and Hannah Witchell shared their plans for producing quality wine in the UK and very soon Flint Vineyards was up and running.
The vineyard had its first harvest in 2019, which promises to be a vintage year for English wines. Hannah spoke to Agri-TechE about their experiences.
Ben is one of the speakers in the February 2020 Pollinator. which will look at the opportunities viticulture offers for farmers and technologists.
Did you and Ben have experience of growing grapes before you set up the vineyard? What motivated you to take this step?
Ben studied for a BSc in Viticulture & Oenology and spent time working in France, California, Greece and England.
Ben was originally motivated to study viticulture and winemaking due to a long held interest in wine and a desire to do something more creative as a career.
We were confident that England would be a good place for growing grapes, this was based on Ben’s experience in working for vineyards during his time studying.
What were the biggest challenges you faced when setting up the vineyard?
It was a new site. The biggest challenge in any vineyard is making sure the site is right. Site selection is the biggest factor in vineyard success, particularly with regard to issues such as frost, temperature, exposure to wind.
Based on Ben’s experience, he had a good idea which varieties to grow from commercial, taste and regional suitability perspectives.
Many many learning points – one main one is not to dwell too much on minute factors – there are many things to consider – variety, rootstock, planting density, training system, row orientation; it goes on and each decision can take up a lot of thought.
It’s important to make good decisions and move on!
On a day to day level what are your concerns – water and nutrition? Pests? Getting sufficient staff for harvest? Issues with bottling?
Water and nutrition are important, particularly on our free draining, sandy soil and in the early years of a vineyard when the root system is still small.
We are lucky with staff for harvest as we have a great team as well as a group of helpers who are part of our membership club and like to get involved in key aspects of the vineyard and winery.
Frost is a worry in Spring, rain and cold conditions in September and October (harvest), rainfall in June (flowering). Winemaking is relatively easy….!
If you could have a dream invention to make vineyards more productive what would it be?
Automated robot pruning and weed control for efficiency.
An effective and easy to use way of warming the micro-climate around the vine (e.g. cloches).
Vineyards have increased in the UK – what do you think the future holds?
The future looks positive for UK wine. The industry is still small and young and we have plenty of wine drinkers in this country so the demand seems to be there. Quality is on the rise and consumers seem to appreciate the lighter, more aromatic wines that we can produce. We are already planting for the future with regard to climate change, using more classic varieties that ripen later and haven’t been traditionally planted in England (e.g. Pinot blanc, Pinot gris, Sauvignon blanc).
At present, warming due to climate change does not present a problem for cool climates such as ours. It is mainly the warm climates (southern France / California) that are worried about warming, as their harvest dates are being brought forward, sometimes risking the grapes not being physiologically ripe.
However, other aspects of climate change are a worry in England; late Spring frosts combined with earlier onset of warm weather in Spring risk frost events on young buds… To hear more from Ben and register for the Pollinator ‘Nothing to W(h)ine About – Uncorking the Opportunities for Innovation in Viticulture’ being held at Cambridge Consultants CB4 0DW on 11 February 2020, 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
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Smartbell animal health system still reaping benefits of GROW agri-tech competition
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
Smartbell’s integrated sensors and software bring the expertise of an experienced herdsman to an automated dairy system. The early-stage company has made good progress since it was a finalist in the non-student category of the GROW agri-tech business plan competition in 2016; the UK’s only competition supporting new businesses in this area.
Smartbell works using an RFID (radio frequency ID) device that can easily be attached to an animal’s collar or ear – as with statutory RFID tags – offering a 24/7 animal health system that monitors feed, heat or cold stress, other behaviours as well as fertility and pregnancy.
Farm trials have shown Smartbell can generate revenues of over £40k for a herd of 300 cows.
Here, Smartbell co-founder Veena Adityan speaks to us about how the company has progressed, four years on from taking part in GROW.
Q&A with Smartbell co-founder, Veena Adityan
How has the business progressed since the GROW agri-tech competition – what do you offer, has demand increased?
Smartbell offers precision solutions for animal health monitoring and management, delivering solutions for farmers and producers (aggregators).
Our beachhead product provides early disease detection and guided triage system to help farmers prevent diseases in young animals, ensuring better lifetime health and growth; it reduces the need for antibiotics and improves profits.
How have you grown since those early days, have you received any additional funding?
Soon after GROW, we received GCGP Local Enterprise Partnership AGri-tech R&D grant support (now The Business Board of the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority).
And, most recently, we have been awarded and are leading a £1M Innovate UK grant: Transforming Food Production.
Can you share some examples of how/where your technology has been applied?
One area is in calf rearing, where there tends to be a high incidence of disease.
Early trials have shown our tech can help detect an outbreak two days before visual symptoms and thus prevents the spread and severity of the disease.
We are also working on several other applications, such as for lowland grazing sheep and affordable health monitoring solutions for adult cattle in emerging markets.
What was the benefit to SmartBell of being involved in GROW?
GROW is very unique competition, with clear focus and structure. The business plan element really made us think through every aspect of our proposition early-on.
We found the mentor programme extremely beneficial. As a young company it is not easy to get access to an experienced mentor from a highly relevant background, who will spend quality time analysing and giving feedback – and this was very useful.
The pitch training and the platform provided by being on GROW has also been incredibly helpful in building credibility and networks.
Belinda Clarke, personally, and through Agri-TechE , as Director, has been so supportive through all these years – that after many years, since taking part, we are still reaping the benefits of having been part of this platform.
Read more about Smartbell.
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Climate change creates opportunities and risks for UK viticulture
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
“Recent research suggests an area in the UK the size of the Champagne region would be profitable for vineyards, extending far beyond the traditional fruit growing regions. The improved quality of the product and the benefits it offers for carbon storage and regenerative agriculture are making viticulture an interesting option for growers,” comments Dr Belinda Clarke, Director of Agri-TechE (formerly known as Agri-Tech).
Viticulture of interest for those looking to diversify
The organisation is bringing together viticulture experts with enterprising farmers and technologists to discuss the emerging agri-tech that is supporting growth in this industry. Belinda continues: “Hot summers could extend the area where grapes can be grown productively in the UK, but this comes with challenges for farmers looking to diversify”
This will be discussed at an event for growers and technologists to discuss the opportunities for innovation in viticulture on 11 February, hosted at Cambridge Consultants’ headquarters on the Cambridge Science Park.
Mamut offers crop level environmental sensing
Chris Roberts, Head of Robotics and Associate Director of the Technology Leadership Group at Cambridge Consultants, comments that there is a strong desire to focus on sustainable farming against a background of climate change and new technologies and techniques such as precision agriculture and robotics are required to meet these needs.
“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t think there is a reluctance from farmers to invest in new technology, the concern is more of the risk of it going wrong and the impact on the bottom line,” Chris observes.
” The challenge is how to create a viable business model to support its adoption.”
Ripeness indicators improve decision making
Increasing the resilience of the vineyard is the focus of Vidacycle; Community Lead Annie Landless will also be speaking at the event.
Vidacycle has developed the SectorMentor software with a collection of tools to enable more informed decision making in the vineyard. For example, their Ripeness Indicator enables the winemaker and vineyard manager to compare the ripeness curve between different sites in real-time to see how the acids and sugars are progressing to support better decision-making at
Ben Witchell of Flint Vineyards will be sharing experiences of setting up a vineyard
harvest. Visualisations based on data collected over a number of years is making the tools more powerful and is revealing insights into climate change.
Annie comments: “Using the tools to look at historical data we can clearly see that ripening dates have gradually shifted earlier and earlier over the last 20 years – there is no doubt things are changing and the summers do appear to be getting hotter.
“Certainly, the reality of climate change to date is that everything becomes less predictable and more extreme, so building resilience becomes more important – and a healthy soil is the ultimate buffer. We encourage people to build soil health with regenerative agricultural practices to improve water retention and bioavailability of nutrients. Vineyards can also provide a carbon sink.”
Innovation at Niab EMR
Julien Lecourt, Senior Research Scientist at Niab EMR at East Malling (Kent), says that although temperatures are rising climate change is “not going to make the UK the new Spanish Riviera!”
He explains: “Our climate is going to remain categorised as “cold/cool” for viticulture and climate change predictions forecast more extreme events such as late frost. However, warmer temperature can also mean higher diseases pressure.”
The withdrawal of chemicals and lesser acceptance of chemical treatments by consumers makes the need to breed varieties of grape that can tolerate these pressures more acute. Niab EMR’s team is at the forefront on this topic, working on Divico, one of the most promising new red varieties.
Additionally, work has started this year in a dedicated project named ‘Britadapt’, as Julien explains: “We are running a project in collaboration with the University of Bordeaux at the Research Vineyard. There are 13 varieties: five are already largely planted in the UK, while eight are considered as not yet suitable for our climate but are indicative of which varieties could be grown in the future. The first crop has been obtained this year (2019) and data collated to model the varieties which are going to be suitable for our climate.”
Increasing resilience to pests
Claire Donkin, Technical Associate at Global Plant Genetics
Claire Donkin, Technical Associate at Global Plant Genetics, comments that it is not only conditions for the plants themselves that are changing but also the background pests and diseases; a multi level approach is needed to give plants a healthy start and a robust resistance to environmental change.
“Nematodes are a major pest in vineyards – they feed on vine roots and compete with the roots for nutrition as well as causing damage and transmission of disease. In short cycle crops they can be controlled through rotation but a long-term crop like grapes the populations can build rapidly, especially where ground is replanted.
“At Global Plant Genetics we are looking at improving the root stock to enable resistance to phylloxera and nematodes. This is a new development for the UK and we are working with growers to support future expansion.”
Spotting the opportunity
Vinescapes’ Vinemap
Dr Alistair Nesbitt, CEO of Vinescapes, is the lead author on a report that assessed the areas of the UK that would be suitable for viticulture and found nearly 35,000 hectares across Kent, Sussex and East Anglia.
He comments: “Viticulture can be more profitable than some more commonly grown arable crops but much depends on quality, route to market and overall business structure. “The viticulture suitability model I developed for England and Wales used a process called Fuzzy Logic to overlay high resolution datasets of topographic, soil, land use and climatic variables to identify and grade land suitability. However, viticulture is a long-term and high capital investment. It requires specialist skill and expertise to get right.
“The last 30-years have seen significant warming during the UK growing season, which is why we can now grow the marketable varieties (Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Meunier) that we do. “Projections are for warmer, drier summers; all else being equal this will aid viticulture in the UK and potentially open up the possibility of different wine styles and other varieties.”
Flint Vineyards in Norfolk is one the most recently established vineyards in the UK and co-owner Ben Witchell will also be giving his learning points at the event. Bacchus 2018 and Pinot Noir Précoce 2018 will be served at the event from Flint’s own Vineyards.
The Pollinator event ‘Nothing to W(h)ine About – Uncorking the Opportunities for Innovation in Viticulture’ will be held at Cambridge Consultants, Cambridge, 11 February 2020 at 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm. Register on the event page here.
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Oxford Farming Conference vs Oxford Real Farming Conference?
Agri-TechE Blog
Agri-TechE
The existence of two simultaneous farming conferences in Oxford in January raises eyebrows to those not close to the situation. Why would there be TWO clashing events, people ask? Can they not liaise around dates and ensure they don’t compete with each other?
History shows this alignment is deliberate, with the Oxford Real Farming Conference, which started in 2010, positioning itself as a “much-needed alternative” to the Oxford Farming Conference, providing “an innovative environment for some radical discussions”.
By contrast, the Oxford Farming Conference, which started in 1936, is steeped in tradition, attracting royalty, international politicians and many major land-owners and farm business-people.
So is there room and need for both?
Having attended OFC in 2019 and ORFC in 2020, my conclusion is absolutely. Both were sold out, showing appetite and interest in the different – but complementary – agendas. Henry Dimbleby, National Food Strategy
As Henry Dimbleby pointed out, the frequency of footfall between both conferences throughout the two days, not least among senior policy-makers and opinion-formers, shows that there is increasing complementarity, but both provide different offerings to delegates.
ORFC has always been about the more ecological end of the industry, focusing on “grass roots”, often (but not always) smaller scale farmers.
OFC is high level, political and attracting major players in the industry.
Different target audiences
Yet as the industry evolves more towards agroecological priorities, as well as food production, it is clear that the two conferences target different industry demographics, and do so successfully.
The ORFC featured some sessions unlikely to tempt a broad audience of more traditional farmers, and the OFC features some sessions that may seem far removed from those focusing on the smaller, community and even, dare I say it, socio-economic agenda of the industry.
Culturally they feel very different events – ORFC opened with drumming from the Shumei Taiko Ensemble and the evening event was a Land and Farming Singers’ Session, while OFC hosted a debate in the prestigious “mini-Parliament” setting of the Oxford Union. Evan Davis encouraging debate at the Oxford Farming Conference 2020
Same goal – regenerative agriculture
However all eyes from both conferences are really on the same prize – to make the industry regenerative for the environment, profitable for its participants, attractive to new entrants and valued by citizens and politicians.
And high impact speakers, especially politicians, have the opportunity to address two different industry groups by the concurrent nature of the two conferences.
The 2020 agendas of both addressed the major opportunities for the industry as we move away from CAP and towards a domestic farming policy.
The development of the ELMS (to reward farmers for delivering “public goods” and services), and the transition towards a net zero carbon industry, would have been a hot topic at both.
OFC and ORFC delegates are united in the call for enabling policies to incentivise and reward farmers as they transition towards a more regenerative approach to land management and food production.
Concern for wellbeing
“We are on the verge of another revolution in how we produce our food” – Rt Hon Michael Gove MP
Both also considered in some detail the importance of supporting the overall mental health and well-being of farmers during this uncertain time for the industry.
So long may the two co-exist. You can only sell all the tickets (with waiting lists) and while it may seem odd to those outside the industry to have concurrent events, they offer different delegate experiences, networks and opportunities. Therefore let’s raise a toast – in your tipple of choice – to an industry that showcases difference, while celebrating success. And let’s continue to keep it Real.
(To read more about sessions at ORFC click here)
Post Overview
13th January 2020
Agri-TechE
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Industry Trends
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Reporting from REAP 2019
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
The theme for REAP 2019 was ‘One Agriculture’ with the recognition that improving the productivity of agriculture has the potential also to be good for animal welfare, human health and that of the planet.
Getting to net zero through increased productivity
The day started with a Farmers’ Breakfast, focusing on Getting to Net Zero. The interactive session was facilitated by Dr Helen Ferrier, Chief Science and Regulatory Affairs Adviser for the National Farmers Union (NFU). She commented that agriculture is uniquely placed to be part of the solution, as both an emissions source and a sink. She said: “As farmers we have a special responsibility to protect carbon reserves already in our soils and vegetation, but not at the cost of reducing our capacity to feed consumers at every price point.”
The report covers the outcomes from this session as well as the presentations and wider discussion of how food production needs to be considered as a system that is more than just the sum of its parts. Click here to view the online version of the report.
Agri-TechE Director Dr Belinda Clarke commented: “Innovation is about finding solutions to problems and this often happens at the ‘intersections’ where different perspectives give new insights.
“Our membership is united through a passion and a commitment to improving the productivity and sustainability of food systems, but bring diversity through their experiences, skills, technologies, views, and ways of thinking.
“All have major and potentially differing contributions to make to the challenges facing the industry, and bringing this together within the cluster creates the opportunity for innovative responses.
“We chose ‘One Agriculture’ as the topic for this conference soon after REAP 2018. The idea was to get people thinking about the dynamic between the natural and cultivated environment as an integrated system, with nutrients cycling between the different functions, and where change in one aspect creates an effect on other elements in the system.
Encouraging a systems approach
“It is crucial in food production that policy is underpinned by sound science. However, there are still considerable gaps in knowledge. There is need to consider science from a more integrated perspective. To broaden the reductionist approach that has characterised knowledge generation and discovery research.
“Good solutions require a cross-disciplinary approach and future solutions are unlikely to reside solely in one part of the industry The need for a systems approach to the global industry is now gaining traction.
“We have in our network the innovative farmers, the globally-leading research, the exciting new technologies and the enabling ecosystem to help make One Agriculture a reality.”
Scroll through the report below. Click a page to open the full pdf.
Post Overview
7th January 2020
Agri-TechE
Agri-TechE Article
Events
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Farming Data, winner of GROW 2017, reports business progress
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
Access to market for perishable goods is a major problem for subsistence farmers. To address this problem Farming Data is developing a software system to enable farmers to communicate with potential buyers using SMS messaging on a basic mobile phone or via mobile broadband on a smartphone.
GROW launchpad
Farming Data won the 2017 GROW agri-tech business plan competition and co-founder Jacqui Poon says the process was highly beneficial to the company.
She comments: “One of the main benefits of being involved in GROW was the advice and guidance from the business mentors.
“They took a close look at our business model and business plan and gave some useful insights. They also connected us with potentially useful contacts in the agri-tech space, and challenged some of our thinking so that we could improve the design and execution of our product.
“Within GROW there were various types of business support available for small businesses looking to grow and seeking financial opportunities. “Since winning GROW, we have had the opportunity to develop our initial prototype at an accelerator, and have combined this development with networking opportunities with those interested in the agri-tech space.
“For example, in 2018 we went on a KTN (Knowledge Transfer Network) partnership seeking mission to Colombia, and we later won grant funding to develop our technology and test its feasibility in the field for small-scale farmers there.”
Listo provides links with buyers
By registering on the Farming Data platform via the app Listo, the producer is given a physical location in the real world, allowing potential buyers to see what is being grown in a particular area.
The buyers can then place orders using the platform and farmers have the opportunity to create virtual cooperatives to fulfil these orders, as well as to review market values for these crops to ensure a fair price. A number of farmers pooling their surplus will be a more attractive proposition and reduce complexity for buyers. Jacqui continues: “We are one of the seven awardees of the UK-Colombia Agri-TechE Catalyst funded by the UK Prosperity Fund and Innovate UK. In total, our 16-month pilot project gained funding of nearly £400k, which is being used to develop our digital platform technology to facilitate the buying and selling of agricultural goods.
“More recently, we have kick-started our project and have been iterating our digital platform with user-centric approaches, focusing on the needs of small-scale farmers and buyers in Colombia.
“As of November 2019, we had more than 200 registered users on the platform, spread over 3 regions of Colombia – namely Risaralda, Caquetá, and Bolívar.” Members – contact us now to be a part of the audience for the GROW Final 2020 and be able to vote for the Audience Choice Award.
If you would be interested in finding out how participation in GROW can help you more details are available here.
More information about Farming Data – click here.
Post Overview
6th January 2020
Agri-TechE
Agri-TechE Article
Data: Collection to Management
Digital Farm Management
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Improving productivity in the vineyard – Vidacycle speaks at Pollinator
Meet the Network
Agri-TechE
Viticulture, among other crops, is data intensive, as Abby Rose’s family found when they started farming and found themselves having to keep track of over 8,000 olive trees and a few hectares of vines in the Loncomilla Valley in Chile. Abby had the idea of using an app to capture the information and share it with others, she pitched Sectormentor for Trees as part of the REAP 2015 Start-Up Showcase.
Since then Vidacycle, the company she co-founded, has gone from strength to strength. Now specialising in viticulture, Vidacycle’s community lead Annie Landless is speaking at the Pollinator event “Nothing to W(h)ine About – Uncorking the Opportunities for Innovation in Viticulture”.
We asked Annie and Abby about how the company has grown since its launch at REAP.
How has the direction of Vidacycle changed since those early days?
At Vidacycle we are about building farm businesses of the future – we help build soil health and profitability on farms around the world.
When we spoke at REAP we were a two-person company and really just finding our feet. We are now six people strong, supporting 100 farms on multiple continents with Vidacycle services.
Customers now include: Ridgeview Vineyard; Rathfinny Wine Estate; the National Trust and the Leckford Estate (the Waitrose Farm), as well as many other pioneering small to medium scale farms and vineyards. Our services:
Three apps: Sectormentor; Soilmentor and Workmentor
Regenerative Transition Consultancy – supporting farms in their transition to more regenerative farming
Software consultancy – we have also worked closely with Niab in the last year to develop a prototype soil quality dashboard for UK farms.
Thinking back over the last few years and the growth of the business do you have any learning points to share?
Looking back, we started out with too broad an offering. We were offering a tool that could do many different things.
Actually, everything in farming is quite specific to each crop, so people aren’t looking for a broad tool. As soon as we started focusing on providing tools for specific areas of farming, such as viticulture, we were able to provide much more value and able to share helpful learnings amongst the community.
Please can you outline how Vidacycle supports viticulture – what problem does it address, have you evidence of the benefit it provides?
Viticulture requires a lot of close observation of the vines and generally each vine will have numerous passes by a human each season.
Many viticulturalists are already noting down these observations on paper, in notebooks and then typing it up back at home and trying to analyse it all in an endless number of spreadsheets.
People spend a lot of time looking for the right spreadsheet. Often those spreadsheets are very difficult for anyone else to discern, so data gets lost with a change of staff.
Sectormentor makes it easy to record any observations of the vines on your phone. That information is illustrated and turned into a visual immediately to help you use those observations to inform management decisions.
Sectormentor also provides flexibility for people to customise what they are recording but keeps everything in one place. As you build up data over a number of years, the tools become more and more powerful as they learn from past years data.
Sectormentor provides a tool kit for viticulture
yield predictor
ripeness indicator
vine health indicator
phenology tool
biodiversity and soil health trackers.
For the smaller vineyards, it allows more than one person to go out and collect the data required to get a good yield prediction, or understand vine health, which is vital in a small team. Ripeness Indicator
For larger vineyards we have found the Ripeness Indicator to be one of their favourite tools.
We have heard numerous reports about how helpful it is to the winemaking and viticulture team to be able to look at the ripeness curve for each block across many different sites, and see the latest information on how the acids and sugars are progressing.
In the run-up to harvest everything gets quite hectic so this saves them a lot of time as well as ensures better grape quality at picking. This helps them predict which blocks they will need to harvest when, and in what order.
Vineyards have increased in the UK – what do you think the future holds – will we need varieties able to cope with climate change or will warmer conditions be beneficial for vines?
As many of our visualisations provide an in depth analysis of historical data we can very clearly see how, for example, ripening dates have gradually shifted earlier and earlier over the last 20 years – there is no doubt things are changing and the summers do appear to be getting hotter. No one knows how the climate will change here in the UK, certainly the reality of climate change to date is that everything becomes less predictable and more extreme, so that is not helpful for anyone in agriculture.
It is likely we won’t be able to develop varieties fast enough to cope with these extreme conditions, so the best protection is to build soil health so that the plants can access all the resources they need for longer in the year. More about Vidacycle To register for the Pollinator event:“Nothing to W(h)ine About – Uncorking the Opportunities for Innovation in Viticulture”, being held at Cambridge Consultants, Cambridge on 11 February 2020 @ 2:00 pm – 6:00 pm
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Wine growing areas in the UK identified by UEA and Vinescapes
Research Digest
Agri-TechE
An area of land the size of the Champagne region of France has been identified as suitable for wine growing in the UK by researchers from UEA and Vinescapes.
Climate and viticulture experts have identified nearly 35,000 hectares of prime viticultural land for new and expanding vineyards – much of it in Kent, Sussex and East Anglia.
Prof Steve Dorling, from UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences, said: “English and Welsh vineyards are booming, and their wine is winning international acclaim.
“This summer’s heatwave has led to a record grape harvest and a vintage year for English and Welsh wine, prompting great interest in investment and land opportunities.
“But despite a trend of warming grape-growing seasons, this season has been quite unusual in terms of weather. English and Welsh grape yields are generally quite low and variable by international standards, so we wanted to identify the best places to plant vineyards and improve the sector’s resilience to the UK’s often fickle weather.”
Areas of the UK could rival Champagne for wine production
The research team, with help from wine producers, used new geographical analysis techniques to assess and grade every 50 x 50 m plot of land in England and Wales for suitability.
Lead author Dr Alistair Nesbitt said: “Interestingly, some of the best areas that we found are where relatively few vineyards currently exist such as in Essex and Suffolk – parts of the country that are drier, warmer and more stable year-to-year than some more established vineyard locations.
“The techniques we used enabled us to identify areas ripe for future vineyard investments, but they also showed that many existing vineyards are not that well located, so there is definitely room for improvement and we hope our model can help boost future productivity.
“Entering into viticulture and wine production in England and Wales isn’t for the faint hearted – the investment required is high and risks are significant.
“But as climate change drives warmer growing season temperatures in England and Wales, this new viticulture suitability model allows, for the first time, an objective and informed rapid assessment of land at local, regional and national scales.”
The research was funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).
Outputs from this research are now available as a service via Vinescapes. To find out more visit www.vinescapes.com or contact info@vinescapes.com.
‘A Suitability model for viticulture in England and Wales: Opportunities for investment, sector growth and increased climate resilience’ is published in the Journal of Land Use Science.
The paper is available from the following link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1747423X.2018.1537312
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Which flowers do bees prefer? Portable sequencer provides answers
Agri-TechE Article
Agri-TechE
To understand which flowers are important for bees, scientists from the Earlham Institute (EI), with the University of East Anglia (UEA), have developed a new method to rapidly identify the sources of bee pollen.
The rapid pollen analysis uses a method called ‘Reverse Metagenomics’ (RevMet) that can identify the plants that individual bees visit. It uses MinION, a portable DNA sequencer from Oxford Nanopore Technologies.
The portability of the equipment involved means that this type of analysis could be performed on-site where bees are collected and sampled – vastly increasing our understanding of where bees look for pollen on a national scale.
Bees are in vast decline in the UK and across Europe, as are the wildflowers on which they rely. One way to help boost their numbers is by planting the correct wildflowers, providing a better habitat for pollinators to disperse, nest and breed.
However, it is unclear which plant species are the most preferred between different pollinators, including bees, and how this might change over time and in different environmental conditions.
Historically, scientists used light microscopy to identify individual bee-collected pollen grains, which was a time-consuming and impractical method.
Ned Peel, the PhD student who carried out the research in the Leggett Group at EI says: “Importantly, from a mixed sample of pollen, we can also measure the relative quantities of each type of pollen.
“Manual methods to measure pollen and other genomics methods, such as metabarcoding, have been developed – but these can’t accurately measure how much of each different type of pollen is found in a sample.”
Prof Douglas Yu from UEA’s School of Biological Sciences, who had the initial idea for the project, said: “To support our tests, we rapidly generated 49 wild UK plant species. Assembling these genomes would have taken us months of work and required a lot of money.
“With our method, the pollen is separately sequenced with the MinION, which generates long DNA sequences – we then used the 49 reference skims to identify each of the long reads to local plant species.”
“This technique can reliably differentiate species in a mixed sample according to the amount of DNA present of each. The results showed that honeybees, and two species of bumblebee, demonstrate a high preference for one plant species per foraging trip.”
The reverse metagenomics pipeline can be applied to more questions than just what plants bees like to pollinate; we can also understand whether certain wildflowers compete with agricultural flowers for pollinators, or the behaviour of pollinators across large areas and land types.
The method could also be used to study other mixed samples, such as herbivore dung, for diet analysis; and air, to identify airborne allergenic pollen and crop pathogens.
The paper, titled: “Semi-quantitative characterisation of mixed pollen samples using MinION sequencing and Reverse Metagenomics (RevMet)” is published in Methods in Ecology and Evolution
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21st November 2019
Agri-TechE
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Livestock
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Campaign to find world’s longest running agricultural experiments
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Results from long-running agricultural experiments are being made openly available to other scientists to support greater collaboration between projects.
The Global Long-Term Agricultural Experiment Network (GLTEN), based at Rothamsted Research, and funded by the Thirty Percy Foundation brings together long-running experiments that span nearly two centuries and six continents, as well as representing numerous climates, environments, crop types, farming practices and land-management regimes.
GLTEN represents a potential treasure trove of information – over 1750 years’ worth of data in total – that will help researchers and policymakers design “the farms of the future”.
Dr Jon Storkey is head of the GLTEN network and helps run an experiment, which at 176 years old, is the oldest to be featured on the site. He comments:
“The hope is that lessons learnt in one country might improve practices elsewhere – resulting in natural resources being used more efficiently, and in a way that produces a food supply that delivers a nutritionally balanced diet.
“We also hope this initiative will help us uncover ‘hidden’ long-term experiments that we didn’t know about, enabling us to mine and analyse their datasets and insights.
“This will allow new discoveries to be made, leading to a truer account of the costs and benefits of our different dietary choices.”
Dr Storkey said finding ways of farming sustainably requires an understanding of how growing crops impacts the environment over long time scales. “The natural processes that determine the sustainability of food production systems often have complex interactions and so experimental results from a single site over a short-time scale are difficult to interpret.
“With large and high-quality datasets, these long-term agricultural experiments can address these challenges. However, many of these datasets were fragmented, under-utilised or have yet not been published. Our first step has been to bring information on the experiments together in one place and provide it in a consistent, accessible format.”
Impact of man-made fertiliser
A good example of the value of long-term experiments is our understanding the effects of man-made fertiliser use – a practice that began in Europe during the Victorian era. Fertiliser experiments that started in the UK in the 1800s have helped chart the long-term impacts of this switch not just on crop yields, but also soils, water, wildlife, human-health and climate.
Dr Storkey said: “These long-term experiments are a really important global resource for designing farms of the future.”
The 65 sites span the globe, with about 20 in the Americas, a dozen or so in Africa, more than 10 in Europe and several others across both Asia and Australasia. Many of the experiments have been running for many decades – the oldest is the UK’s Broadbalk Experiment at Rothamsted Research which is 176 years old, whilst a further four have also surpassed a century.
“As the network grows, it will be an important part of the exciting new science being developed at Rothamsted and partner institutions around the world to ensure a sustainable food supply and healthy environment for future generations,” added Dr Storkey.
For more information contact david.stevens@rothamsted.ac.uk 01582 938525 for more info.
Find out more at http://www.glten.org/ https://thirtypercy.org/
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21st November 2019
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Agri-Tech Adoption & Social Science
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The views expressed in this Member News article are the author's own and do not necessarily represent those of Agri-TechE.
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It was a new site. The biggest challenge in any vineyard is making sure the site is right. Site selection is the biggest factor in vineyard success, particularly with regard to issues such as frost, temperature, exposure to wind.
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