Comment: Yorkshire's role in cutting edge crop research

Over the past few decades we have been very successful in achieving just that, but in more recent years there have been two serious issues that have arisen: concerns about the environmental and health effects of modern pesticides and increasing resistance of pathogens to the pesticides that we use.

The latter has been a particular problem in controlling fungal diseases affecting wheat.

In the mission to overcome these challenges, the Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Farmer Scientist Network plays an influential role. The network brings together a combination of experienced scientific and practical expertise to push forward innovation and new technology in the agricultural sector.

The network advises the society and through the society, it advises policymakers in the UK and beyond on critically important issues such as farming practices, food security, sustainable productivity and the ways in which new science and technology can help to solve problems and further underpin new innovation in modern agriculture.

Just like the NHS, we are looking at diseases with more emphasis on enhancing the health of crops rather than treating disease.

A recent grant from the European Agriculture and Innovation Programme is enabling the network to carry out new trials, looking at different approaches to crop protection.

Working with a group of dedicated farmers and technologists across the region and more further afield, we are comparing the effectiveness of synthetic and ‘biologic’ products on different wheat varieties’ disease resistance, yield and quality.

These ongoing trials are currently taking place across three sites in the North of England: Stockbridge Technology Centre in Cawood near Selby and Newcastle University’s Cockle Park and Nafferton farms in Northumberland.

By using these three different sites we are also able to test performance on different types of soils and in a variety of climatic conditions – which will make our findings more robust.

The biologic reagents are micro-organisms that are used to coat seeds before sowing or sprayed on to the plant.

The way they work is actually rather like probiotics in human medicine, to strengthen the plant’s natural resistance.

While these are relatively new to the UK, it appears likely that they will become much more widely available over the next few years.

The research project will continue over the next two years and a series of open days are planned in the coming months when farmers and anyone who is interested can come along and find out more about the trial and ask any questions.

At the end of the project, the results will be widely disseminated as they could help to ensure our food security in the future.

In the meantime, anyone who would like to learn more about our research, the coordinator at Yorkshire Agricultural Society is Holly Jones and she can be contacted via email at [email protected].

Professor Rob Edwards is head of Newcastle University’s School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development and is the chairman of Yorkshire Agricultural Society’s Farmer Scientist Network.