Direct drill for pre-breeding: Delivering research field trial capabilities for net-zero crop production in the UK

Research context: Achieving Net-Zero farming has been identified by the UK government as critical to ensure sustainable UK food production. For decades, the cornerstone of modern arable crop farming has been use of the plough to prepare the ground for sowing. However, many UK farmers are now transitioning to 'no-tillage' or 'minimum tillage' management approaches, whereby sowing is undertaken either into previous crop stubbles or into standing cover crops under regenerative agricultural approaches. No/minimum tillage practices greatly reduce soil disruption, leading to benefits including improved soil structure, increased soil organic matter and reduced soil erosion. This in turn impacts factors such as soil (and plant) microbiome, soil greenhouse gas emissions, crop physiology and nutrient uptake. Additionally, crop genotype (G) and the environment (E) will further interact with agronomic management (M) practice. Ultimately, it is the interaction between G x E x M that describes crop performance. Much UK equipment investment has focused on the genetics and genomics of UK arable crops (e.g wheat, barley, oats). Similarly, investment in static, drone-based and remote plant imaging platforms have revolutionised crop data capture from field environments. Despite growing implementation of no/minimum tillage in farmers' fields, UK crop research has overwhelmingly focused on conventional plough-based farming practises. This is due in part to lack of access to the specialised equipment needed to deliver no/minimum tillage research plots, contributing to a critical gap in evaluation of the role and impact of crop management in UK research.

Equipment request: In this proposal we request funds for a specialised seed drill capable of delivering no/minimum tillage research field plots for a wide range of UK arable crops at various scales - ranging from 1x1m mini plots, all the way to 12x2m evaluation plots. The requested drill is designed to allow drilling of plots into all seedbed scenarios, so that evaluation of arable crop research plots can be made whether it be in a plough, minimum-tillage, no-tillage or no-tillage regenerative-based establishment systems using our existing network of tractors.

Equipment context, applications and benefits: Across our network of UK trial sites, NIAB delivers in excess of 100,000 arable trial plots per year. The equipment requested will be based at the NIAB-Cambridge field site, located at the heart of the East of England's concentration of arable crop research and breeding institutes and companies. The versatile no/minimum tillage seed drill equipment will be made accessible to academics and industry, catalysing high-quality research and development from both public and private sector partners and collaborators. Critically, this access will be made within the context of NIAB's extensive trials facilities and associated crop and agronomy research expertise, underpinned via our technical knowledge and support services across these sectors.

Achieving Net-Zero farming has been identified by the UK government as critical to ensure continued food production in the UK while protecting our environment. Improvement in sustainable production will emerge from a co-evolution of agronomic practises, conventional through to regenerative farming practices and new genetic material. One aspect of arable crop farming that has been re-assessed is the use of plough and many farmers are now growing combinable crops using no-till or minimum till approaches into either previous crop stubbles or into standing cover crops adopted in regenerative agricultural approaches. The area of crops cultivated under no-till is steadily increasing. However, available commercial varieties have generally been selected under conventional deep-inversion ploughing, which is currently the most common farming practises. Conducting pre-breeding work under no-till conditions at an early stage of the process would enable the selection of varieties that are better adapted and higher yielding under no-till conditions. It is critical to conduct this work now, as new diverse wheat genetic material have been generated and are moving through the pipeline of commercial varietal development. One of the reasons varieties are not evaluated under no-till conditions is the lack of drilling equipment to generate research plots such as microplots (1 x 1.2m), mini plots (6mx2m) and evaluation plots (12mx2m) under no-till conditions. The agronomic work exploring ways to reduce tillage and build fertility; components of regenerative agriculture, has been conducted and the fields are available. We propose to purchase a direct seeding drill to bring both aspect of the research together and unable us to conduct research, evaluate experimental material at an early stage of the process and for which few seeds are available under no-till conditions.