Potato LITE – Low Intensity Tillage Enhancements for Sustaining Potato Production in Future Regenerative Agricultural Systems

The intensity and frequency of potato cultivation operations are damaging to soil health and do not fit with the current drive towards Regenerative Agriculture and Net Zero. Deep, destoned seedbeds are judged as a necessity within the industry to avoid tuber damage. Whilst reduced tillage technologies are enabling regenerative agriculture in cereal systems, this technology has not been developed for root crop production, such as potatoes. It will be even more important in the future to rotate root crops across more farms to relieve pest/disease pressures, particularly in the absence of nematicides. Yet landlords/growers are increasingly averse to including them given the overall policy direction of regenerative agriculture across the rotation. Therefore, it is essential for supply chain stability and exports (\>£89M/yr) that innovation is progressed rapidly to de-risk future potato production. With potato production employing 8x more labour than cereals, it is also crucial to the rural economy.

This project aims to quantify the effects on soil health and GHG emissions of current commercial best practice compared to novel, lower-intensity tillage machinery and sustainable cultivation techniques, in order to validate better production systems. The experienced consortium (comprising innovative SMEs, multi-national food companies and relevant academic expertise) wants to make one-pass, shallow-depth, regenerative potato cultivation possible and cost-effective. Once the environmental and business benefits have been proven by the project, this novel production system and cultivation machinery will transform the entire root vegetable sector and enable its effective transition towards a viable, Net Zero future. This will make the £824M potato sector resilient to rising costs and environmental change, ensuring its long-term success.

The project will co-develop new cultivation equipment and systems with farmers and the wider supply chain, focusing on reducing the depth, intensity and number of operations required. A range of implements capable of integrating reduced intensity, zoned soil cultivation with planting in soils which do not require destoning will also be developed. The effects of cover crops on soil health will be quantified, however it is beyond the scope of the project to examine any confounding effects on pathology/pests. Significant KE will be conducted in the final year of the project to ensure that the innovative developments can be adopted with confidence by the industry, including developing physical and digital guides for growers to use on farm, demonstrating the technology direct to the wider sector, and developing new teaching materials for the next generation of growers.