Public Funding for Grimme (U.K.) Limited

The intensity and frequency of potato cultivation operations are damaging to soil health and do not fit with the current drive towards Regenerative Agriculture and Net Zero. Deep, destoned seedbeds are judged as a necessity within the industry to avoid tuber damage. Whilst reduced tillage technologies are enabling regenerative agriculture in cereal systems, this technology has not been developed for root crop production, such as potatoes. It will be even more important in the future to rotate root crops across more farms to relieve pest/disease pressures, particularly in the absence of nematicides. Yet landlords/growers are increasingly averse to including them given the overall policy direction of regenerative agriculture across the rotation. Therefore, it is essential for supply chain stability and exports (\>£89M/yr) that innovation is progressed rapidly to de-risk future potato production. With potato production employing 8x more labour than cereals, it is also crucial to the rural economy. This project aims to quantify the effects on soil health and GHG emissions of current commercial best practice compared to novel, lower-intensity tillage machinery and sustainable cultivation techniques, in order to validate better production systems. The experienced consortium (comprising innovative SMEs, multi-national food companies and relevant academic expertise) wants to make one-pass, shallow-depth, regenerative potato cultivation possible and cost-effective. Once the environmental and business benefits have been proven by the project, this novel production system and cultivation machinery will transform the entire root vegetable sector and enable its effective transition towards a viable, Net Zero future. This will make the £824M potato sector resilient to rising costs and environmental change, ensuring its long-term success. The project will co-develop new cultivation equipment and systems with farmers and the wider supply chain, focusing on reducing the depth, intensity and number of operations required. A range of implements capable of integrating reduced intensity, zoned soil cultivation with planting in soils which do not require destoning will also be developed. The effects of cover crops on soil health will be quantified, however it is beyond the scope of the project to examine any confounding effects on pathology/pests. Significant KE will be conducted in the final year of the project to ensure that the innovative developments can be adopted with confidence by the industry, including developing physical and digital guides for growers to use on farm, demonstrating the technology direct to the wider sector, and developing new teaching materials for the next generation of growers.

The horticulture sector is heavily reliant on access to seasonal labour for many field operations, including harvest. Movement restrictions because of Covid-19, post-Brexit uncertainty, competition from other sectors, and the lack of suitable UK-based labour have driven growers to seek investments in labour-replacing technologies. 99,000 tonnes of lettuce were harvested by seasonal workers in the UK in 2019 with a farm gate value of £178 million (Defra BHS, 2020), UK's highest value field vegetable crop. This project has identified an opportunity to automate the process, and reduce the reliance on seasonal labour, by developing an innovative robotic solution. * We intend to adapt existing mechanical capability and lift the lettuce clear of the ground by discs and then gripping the stem with pinch belts. * The lettuce will then be presented to camera sensors that will direct an air blast which will blow the outer wrapper leaves of the lettuce head clear to expose the stem. * Machine vision via deep segmentation will then be deployed using a second camera sensor to train a deep learning model to identify the precise location to be cut. The three separate developments will be combined to form a prototype for field trials towards the end of the 2021 UK season. Engagement with end-users has confirmed their need and willingness to be part of the development of such a machine. Early indications are that harvesting costs could be reduced by around £5,000 per hectare per annum. 123,000ha of lettuce and chicory was grown in the EU in 2018 (FaoStat, 2020) with similar areas in the USA. These areas have similar issues to the UK with access to seasonal labour, therefore the potential market for such an innovative machine is extensive.

The potato industry has witnessed a 10-year long yield stagnation; coupled with increasingly stringent demands on potato quality, there is a compelling need for farmers to increase marketable yield. This project aims to develop an innovative spatial crop model & integrated decision support system for improved variable rate seed planting, fertiliser use & irrigation scheduling to increase productivity of the potato value chain. Converging the multi-disciplinary expertise of Soil Essentials (SE), Newcastle University (NU), Mylnefield Research Services (MRS), Grimme (GR), & McCain (MC), we will build upon the MAPP point model (Management Advisory Package for Potatoes) by taking a holistic approach & considering the spatial variability of tuber size distribution to inform a new & improved adaptive spatial meta-model. The resulting spatial decision support system is cross-sectorial & has the potential to transform in-field decision-making, not just for potato farming but also for other root & arable crops.