This is one of the questions being explored by 2026 Nuffield Scholar Matthew Steel. As agriculture faces increasing pressure to reduce emissions, cut input costs and improve efficiency, many farm businesses are already evolving. Renewable energy is already part of the picture on many farms, from solar to AD, but what if the next step …
What if farmers weren’t just producing food, but fuel too? Read More »
Over the past thirty-five years, the Allerton Project has been at the forefront of many developments in how we now manage the farmed landscape. In that time, we’ve collected a huge volume of often quixotic data on everything from farmland bird and insect numbers to the rooting depths of plants under different biostimulant treatments. However, …
The Silent System Beneath Your Boots Written by Hugh Goldsworthy, Farm Landscape Contractor and Independent Soil Researcher If you have never heard of quorum sensing, do not worry, you are not alone. Ask a room full of farmers or soil scientists about it and many/if not most, will not have heard of it either. But …
Quorum Sensing: The Soil Network Hiding in Plain Sight Read More »
Across climates, continents and farming systems, one thing united these Nuffield Presenting Scholars in Aberdeen: soil is no longer just a technical consideration, but a social, economic and cultural one too. From understanding why farmers change their practices, to investigating the future of peatland management, these two scholars offer complementary insights into how soil will …
Jason Pole, AHDB Technical Content Manager, explains how innovative trials aim to pinpoint elusive crop characteristics to help farmers reduce input use. Every year, efforts are renewed in the quest to grow profitable crops. The fundamental ways to achieve this are well-understood but there is always scope for improvement, which includes turning towards genetics even …
Written by George Hepburn and Olivia Bye from Aiva Fertilisers A simple topic made to be complex, carbon underlies the health and value of our soil ecosystems. Building reservoirs of carbon, and the variety of options available is where things become shrouded. The sliding scale of carbon begins at its simplest form, molasses. Components of …
The much-awaited report from Minette Batters on farm profitability was released by Defra shortly before Christmas. Tom Allen-Stevens summarises what it means for soil pioneers. Building soil health at pace is central to improving the resilience and long-term profitability of English farming, according to the Farming Profitability Review led by Baroness Minette Batters. It calls …
SOILSHOT approach key to profitable, resilient farming Read More »
Written by Chris Fellows The promise of a high-tech farming future is here, but for many UK farmers it remains tantalisingly out of reach. We are caught in a dangerous limbo: a “Gramsci Gap” where the old ways of farming are dying, but the new, tech-driven world is struggling to be born. As a farming …
Mind the Gap: Why UK Agritech is Stuck in the “Time of Monsters” Read More »
Jason Pole, AHDB Technical Content Manager, explains how knowing what makes the ergot pathogen tick can help target management to reduce disease pressure, limit crop infection and keep clean grain clean. Ergot (Claviceps purpurea) grows in and replaces grain with its own fungal tissues, which eventually form a hard, purple-black sclerotium (with a white interior) known …
Based on a paper by Dr Gareth Thomas et al., Rothamsted Research, University of Exeter and University of Warwick — adapted for Direct Driller readers Across the UK, farmers are dealing with one of the most stubborn and costly fungal problems in modern agriculture: Sclerotinia sclerotiorum. This soilborne disease causes white mould and stem rot …
The Fungus That Fights Back: Harnessing Soil Biology to Tackle Crop Disease Read More »
