Research News

The AHDB Planting and Variety Survey is to provide the earliest view of Great Britain’s planted area for the upcoming harvest.

Participation in an annual nationwide survey of farmland birds has more than doubled. Britain’s farmers and gamekeepers have shown their long-term commitment to conservation alongside productive land-use by completing this year’s GWCT Big Farmland Bird Count in record numbers.

The Trehane Trust has awarded a £15,000 bursary to national dairy advisory company, The Dairy Group, to research and recommend a roadmap for UK dairy farmers to become net zero within the Government’s timeframe.

With over a quarter of the population saying they plan to eat out less when lockdown eases, AHDB has produced a new report exploring future opportunities for meat and dairy in-home.

The upturn in agricultural tractor registrations (over 50hp) seen in recent months continued into March, normally the peak month for registrations each year.

Scientists are reporting a breakthrough in efforts to cultivate ‘interstellar’ crops, as a team of astro-biologists and botanists successfully grow a new hybrid crop species in simulated Martian soils.

Erosion of resistance genes is a major concern, and with a declining plant protection toolbox, scientists, breeders, agronomists and farmers are working together to try to catch a moving target. Farmers Guide spoke to an agronomist, a breeder and a researcher to find out what is being done to help the industry – Heather Briggs reports.

In January, RABI launched the largest ever survey of its kind in England and Wales, with a target of achieving 26,000 responses from farming people.

New polling by YouGov shows that Britons value farmers more than any other country.

A cross-industry taskforce is calling for UK oilseed rape growers to join an ambitious on-farm monitoring and trials programme in the war against cabbage stem flea beetle.

Since September, research incentives totalling over £5,000 have been given to farmers, who all signed up to the Field Mouse Rural Panel, as a thank you for their time and contribution.

Cereal growers are being offered an opportunity to learn about their fields’ aphid populations by getting involved in an ADAS-led research project.