Agronomics

At this years Agri-Tech E REAP Conference, Sarah Kendall, ADAS Crop Physiologist joined a panel consisting of Matthew Smith (Scientific Technologies) and Macelo Galdos (Rothamsted Research) to discuss how the digital world is informing and guiding the developments and decisions in the real world – ranging from digital twins to predictive models, from platforms to help with scenario planning to the use of AI and machine learning to yield unprecedented insights into the future of agriculture and horticulture.

The ideas behind Farm-PEP came together in ~2018, drawing from the developments of Agronomics, the YENs, AHDB's Monitor Farm programme and the idea of a 'What Works' Centre for Agriculture. 

Farmers, advisors and researchers working together to understand and improve crop nutrition on-farm

Inferring the right conclusions from field trials is important - how confident can you be that a result is 'real' rather than due to the underlying noise? As part of the Farm-PEP FIP project we are working with BGS to explore the best ways to communicate confidence, uncertainty, significance, probability and value with farmers and growers.

EIP-Agri Project supporting groups of YEN farmers to test specific ideas.

The INNO-VEG project aims to increase the speed and uptake of innovation in the field vegetable and potato sectors by: Defining and implementing a new approach for delivering cost-effective research. Establishing a cross border innovation network which will create the framework conditions for innovation to facilitate uptake of the new approach.

Farmer Innovation Group as part of the YEN Yield Testing EIP Agri project Amino acids have been widely reported in the farming press and in a few scientific papers to be biostimulants, but with little or no independent evidence from UK field conditions. This Amino Acid FIG was established to put that right, making eight tests in 2018 and five more in 2019.

Driving Decision Making for Efficient & Sustainable Agricultural Production ADAS Digital Decision Support encompasses the way in which we use digital data and digital technology to deliver solutions in crop production, sustainable food and farming, land management and ecology to our clients.

Guidance from ADAS Agronomics on how best to conduct Line Trials on farm.  

Scientific paper in Field Crops Research published by the ADAS Agronomics team reporting experience working with BASF Real Results farmers conducting around 50 on-farm Line Trials per year.

Defra Sustainable Arable LINK project from 2010 to 2015 that aimed to produce an automated system using precision farming technologies for N management of cereals, but ended up changing the whole way we think about nitrogen, yields, experimentation, research, variation & knowledge.

AHDB project from 2014-2018 working with farmers to monitor and optimise their nitrogen fertiliser rates on-farm.  

Farmer Innovation Group as part of YEN Yield Testing project on achieving Deeper Rooting. Encouragement of deep burrowing earthworms might enhance yields by enabling deeper rooting, and capture of more sub-soil water.

BASF Real Results Circle (https://basfrealresults.co.uk/) has been running since 2017, bringing together 50 farmers and supporting them to test decisions on-farm.

Farmer Innovation Group from the YEN as part of the YEN Yield Testing Project. The idea of crop momentum arose because high yields in the YEN associated with little-and-often applications, or ‘attention to detail’. Also, two interacting factors are thought to drive crop growth: assimilate supply (source), and assimilate storage capacity (sink). It was suggested that the initial source may affect the sink at the next stage; so increasing initial growth may enhance subsequent growth, creating ‘momentum’.

Farmer Innovation Group as part of YEN Yield Testing EIP Agri project testing spring potassium fertiliser applications

Group coming out of the YEN looking at ways to increase deep rooting, by encouraging deep burrowing earthworms.

Independent research to enhance the performance of grass and forage crops