National Institute of Agricultural Botany Trust

CleanHop Propagation will compare hop plant propagation in a controlled grow-room (with physical segregation between varieties and one-way "clean-to-dirty" workflows) against best-practice greenhouse propagation, testing which approach better prevents virus and viroid contamination. [Hop yards can continue to crop for 10--20 years][0], so infected plantin...

This project tackles the challenge of nitrogen use efficiency on the variable soils common across eastern England. Nitrogen is one of the biggest costs in wheat production and a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. Currently, around a quarter of the nitrogen applied to UK wheat is not taken up by the crop, increasing the risk of air and water polluti...

There are over 0.25 million miles of hedgerows across 106,000 farms in England alone. Well-managed hedgerows serve as field boundaries that can support biosecurity, biodiversity, deliver ecosystem services (e.g., water management and soil protection) and offer meaningful shelter for crops and livestock, improving productivity and welfare. However, many he...

Spotted wing drosophila (SWD) is the most economically damaging pest of soft and stone fruit crops in the UK and increasingly important in vineyard grapes. Adult flies lay eggs in ripening fruit and larvae render the fruit unmarketable. Few insecticides are effective against SWD, and alternative control methods are expensive, labour-intensive and only par...

This project will test a new **foliar nutrition programme** designed to maintain wheat yield and grain quality while using less phosphate (P) and potash (K) fertiliser. The technology supplies nutrients as small, non-ionic molecular complexes that move naturally within the plant, allowing fertiliser inputs to be reduced without affecting crop performance....

Arable farmers have very few spring break crop species from which to choose, ensuring breaks from wheat and barley. **Mill-it** aims to establish _proso_[][0]_millet_ (AKA Broomcorn & White Millet) as a viable, nutritious, sustainable break crop for human consumption in the UK, positioning it as a potential new protein-rich and gluten-free superfood, buil...

Our project combines farmers, a food company and crop researchers to improve the prospects of chickpea as a UK crop. Pulses such as chickpeas are low-input, nitrogen-fixing crops that are high in protein and well-suited to sustainable farming. However, chickpeas are rarely grown here. Previous work confirmed that home-grown chickpea has potential, but man...

Fibe Ltd has shown that potato stems are a source of high quality textile fibre, attracting the fashion industry seeking sustainable sources of fibre. Supplying to Fibe our potato stems, which are a nuisance to harvest operations, is attractive to us ( Sentry and Dyson), as it saves costs and improves the sustainability profile of the farm by valorising c...

Farmers are keen to adopt circular economy approaches, returning valuable resources to farm from the food supply chain to increase efficiency, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental impacts. However, farmers need more information on 1) whether the biochar produced can be applied with farm machinery at field scales and 2) whether it can be...

Sugar beet is an important crop across Eastern England with a sector worth over £368 million. However, since the withdrawal of neonicotinoid seed treatments, virus yellows, a disease spread by aphids, poses a growing threat, with growers having limited control options, with recent yield losses estimated at £43 million. This project will trial the integrat...

Recent research has highlighted the significant damage caused to UK crops from invasive pests. This Adopt project aims to help redress this balance; enabling releases of UK native parasitoids, natural biological controls, on English fruit farms. This will boost the numbers of native parasitoids to levels that can significantly reduce invasive pest numbers...

**Public Project Summary** This project will trial two innovative nitrogen products; **R-Leaf** and **Vixeran,** as sustainable alternatives to conventional foliar fertilisers in commercial **apple orchards**. R-Leaf is a daylight-activated foliar spray that converts atmospheric nitrogen oxides (NOx) into plant-available nitrate directly on the leaf surfa...