_Low Emission Nutrition_ aims to evaluate low-carbon nutrition approaches under real-world UK arable conditions, focusing on wheat and potato crops. The goal is to generate independent, farmer-led evidence comparing these alternatives to conventional nitrogen fertilisers in terms of productivity, cost-effectiveness, and environmental impact. UK agriculture must reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fertiliser use while maintaining yields and profitability. Conventional nitrogen sources like ammonium nitrate and urea are widely used but carry high embedded carbon. Although low-carbon alternatives are emerging, farmers lack robust, comparative data to guide adoption. This project addresses that gap by trialling products market leading approaches across commercial farm sites with varied soils and in wheat and potato crops. Trial designs will be co-developed with farmers, who can nominate additional products to ensure relevance. Each site will use split-field, strip, or replicated plot designs, comparing low-carbon products against standard regimes and untreated controls. Data will be collected using manual assessments and precision tools like NDVI imaging & GPS mapping. Outputs include a final report, site-level data, farmer insight videos, and a practical guide. These will support evidence-based decisions and contribute to achieving UK Agriculture's Net Zero goals.

With Innovate-UK support, Messium Limited, in collaboration with H L Hutchinson Limited, UK Agri-Tech Centre, and The Allerton Project, will develop the first dedicated optimal nitrogen recommendation platform that combines first-of-a-kind hyperspectral imagery with rapid AI/ML crop modelling tools to provide tailored nitrogen application analytics and insights, in doing so reducing resultant financial pressures on farmers/agronomists/growers with significant positive environmental impacts related to nitrogen leaching, runoff and emissions (to be assessed during project). The solution has been designed to address key agricultural challenges identified through substantial end-user input with information to be presented in an easy to understand format aimed at all target users regardless of ethnicity/culture, age, gender and level of technological literacy. Grant funding accelerates development and exploitation within _global precision agriculture market_ ($9.7Bn in 2023 projected to grow to $21.9Bn by 2031) and supports future application to other crops and application to grazing management.

The consortium Crop Intellect , Barworth Research , University of Lincoln, CHAP, Dyson Farming and The Allerton Project (all UK based organisations) are focused on designing and testing a prototype combination of R-Leaf and nitrogen fixing bacteria (endophytes) to reduce synthetic nitrogen usage in crop production. Crop Intellect is the lead organisation, proprietor of R-Leaf technology and IP owner. R-Leaf is a disruptive innovation that is sprayed onto crop canopies, where it captures atmospheric nitrogen pollution (NOx) and converts it into nitrate using sunlight. This removes NOx pollution from the atmosphere as well as reducing the use of synthetic N-fertiliser in agriculture. It further, breaks down N2O into benign components resulting in reducing the incidence of climate change. Endophytes form symbiotic relationships with plants, where they fix atmospheric nitrogen and convert it into ammonia, which is then supplied to the plant in exchange for nutrients. Plot trials on wheat have confirmed that combined applications of R-Leaf and endophytes can improve yield by 5% compared to applying the technologies individually. R-Leaf can replace 50 kg/ha of nitrogen fertiliser, whilst endophytes have been estimated to replace up to 70 kg/ha. The project aims to produce an R-Leaf/endophyte prototype that can combine the nitrogen-fixing benefits of both, capable of replacing an estimated 50% of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser applied to wheat under standard farming practice. Experiments undertaken at the University of Lincoln will validate combinations of R-Leaf and endophytes for yield benefits and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as ensuring practicality of the prototype. The final prototype will then be utilised at Dyson Farming and The Allerton Project to perform field trials on wheat with reduced nitrogen fertiliser. These will determine the amount of synthetic nitrogen fertiliser that can be replaced through application of a combination of R-Leaf and endophytes to wheat crop, and the dual environmental benefits stemming from the reduced synthetic nitrogen fertilizer use and the breakdown of the greenhouse gas N2O. The proposed combination however brings challenges since bacteria cannot be readily mixed in the spraying tank. The consortium brings the skills to overcome this challenge and enable ease of use aiming to facilitate wide adoption by growers. Benefits to growers include reduced input costs and improved soil health from reduced synthetic nitrogen fertiliser use. It will contribute directly towards net zero emissions in agriculture impacting positively the entire agri-food supply chain from farm to retailers and end consumers.

The UK Processors and Growers Research Organisation will lead this ambitious national research programme with 200 UK farms and 18 partners to design an environmentally transformative, economically sustainable arable rotation system to optimise crop rotations for climate benefit. UK farming accounts for 10% of the UK's total GHG emissions p/a (46.3 MT), 68% of total UK nitrous oxide emissions, 47% of total methane emissions and 1.7% of total CO2\. Arable cropping significantly contributes to these figures, utilising 596,496T of Nitrogen fertiliser p/a. Existing emission estimates are for individual crops, and the impact of these in successive rotational cropping remains unquantified. This project will investigate three opportunity gaps: (i) replacement of 20% of national grain crops with pulses and legumes rotations to establish a net zero farming pathway, (ii) the nutritional and financial feasibility of replacing feed grains (currently representing 70% of the UK grain market) with legumes in 30% national livestock feed and (iii) create a market for this additional yield. The proposed system outputs would contribute to UK Net Zero goals with a total potential reduction of 1.5MT CO2e p/a of the maximum potential 2.8MT for UK agriculture (Defra Agri Climate Report, 2021) in the following ways. * Removal of 233,000T of nitrogen fertiliser and 0.55MT (CO2e) - a 1.2% national reduction - by increasing pulse and legume cropping areas to the rotational optimum of 20% (1M Ha) across UK farms. * Use of subsequent produce in animal feed substitution (replacing 50% of imported soya meal) delivering a further 0.7MT CO2e reduction. * Delivery of a residual N benefit to following crops, leading to an additional 0.25MT CO2e (0.5%). * Delivering a national cost saving to farming of £1032M p/a, by removing 20% of N fertiliser across UK growers and 1.8MT soya imports respectively from the UK farming supply chain. * A policy tool that leads to the adoption of more measures and cost-effective solutions for reducing agricultural GHGs that fit with the farm business' (source: Defra Agri-Climate Report, October 2021). * A set of farmer and grower case studies that can be used to educate and inform the national farming community of the environmental and financial benefits of the research solution. We propose a technologically and financially accessible system for farmers/growers to achieve 100% uptake of a nationally resilient and sustainable food system. Secondary benefits will be the reduction of carbon footprint associated with the domestic replacement of 1.8MT of soya imports p/a.

MICROCAT’s aim is to develop a novel step-change technology for the treatment and recycling of agricultural and industrial wastewaters which offers a potential global saving of up to 17000ML/day of blue water. The proposed treatment system will use an advanced textile material (ATM), surface func-tionalised and nanocoated, to serve as a catalyst in the treatment of agricultural wastewater. This inn-ovative project will couple microwave energy to this catalytic material to enhance reaction rates and enable an industrial scale treatment system. Key objectives: couple microwave energy to the catalytic system (highly innovative) to increase catalytic efficiency by 500%; double surface area and efficiency of ATM by developing novel textile structures; optimise nano-coating process to reduce costs by 20% with adaptation for scale-up for manufacture; optimise system process parameters in field trials to meet water regulations. This technology has potential to treat currently untreatable wastewaters