There are growing market demands for plant-based proteins and crops that add diversity to the crop rotation. This reflects consumer trends towards "sustainable" foods and the need for farmers to increase incomes whilst reducing environmental impacts. In these respects, field beans provide considerable opportunity. They naturally fix nitrogen (N), can be used for low environmental impact animal/human foods, and play a critical role in crop rotation, not least as a fill-in for oil seed rape where production is constrained by the lack of critical pesticides. Field bean net zero credentials are significant; they are grown without synthetic N and provide residual N for later rotations. By comparison, synthetic nitrogen is responsible for 83% of all UK field GHG emissions (16,873TCO2e, Crippa\_et\_al\_2021). Despite this opportunity, only 4.2% of UK arable land is used for bean production, but it can be extended to 20%, offsetting the carbon footprint for 2.3 million tonnes of soybean imports. This low acreage reflects highly variable yields (5.1t/ha, range 1-8t/ha) and low gross margins, but the potential yield is 13.7t/ha (White\_et\_al\_2022\_AnnAppBiol). Recent studies by PGRO, Yara and the BEAN-YEN network (White\_et\_al\_2022) have shown a considerable opportunity to improve yields and gross margins. These studies proved that poorly understood nutrient requirements are a key barrier to further scaling. For instance, across 318 farms, Yara showed substantial proportions of faba beans are deficient in K, Mg, Mn, Mo and B. Such nutrient deficiencies impair nodule activity, nitrogen fixation, and plant resilience to environments. New varieties have great potential to improve yields, but nutrient interactions are not understood. ANSWERS is a bold initiative which will resolve these challenges by: * Creating new research to develop practical nutrition plans to enhance nodule activity and nitrogen fixation, productivity, yield stability, protein content and climate resilience. * Developing new selection methods to accelerate UK-grown field beans. * Demonstrating profitable and sustainable net zero UK plant protein production supply chains. To deliver these outcomes, we will 1) manage cross-sector collaboration and research between leading technology providers (LSPG, Yara and PGRO), key UK farmers (Sentry Group, 20000ha) and HEI (University of Lincoln, UoL). 2) create novel nutrition plans specific to spring and winter beans, and 3) develop on-farm KE, co-creation and demonstration to drive adoption at scale. ANSWERS has high adoption potential, and all farmers will have access to know-how nutrient management plans that increase bean yields and margins whilst reducing environmental costs.

Phoma stem canker, caused by the fungal pathogen Leptosphaeria maculans, is a damaging disease on oilseed rape in the UK, causing annual yield losses > £100M despite use of fungicides. With recent loss of the most effective fungicides through EU legislation and predicted global warming, potential yield losses will increase. Use of host resistance to control this disease is becoming ever more important. However, new sources of resistance are often rendered ineffective due to pathogen population changes. This project will monitor emergence of new virulent races of L. maculans and prevent them from spreading into new regions; investigate molecular mechanisms of mutation from avirulent to virulence in L. maculans populations; understand effects of environmental factors (e.g. temperature) on durability of host resistance. New knowledge will be used to develop new control strategies by optimising deployment of host resistance and targeted fungicide application. This project will bring together a consortium with breeders, distributor, farmer and scientists to ensure effective control of phoma stem canker by directly applying knowledge from research into farming practice.