New grass to fight flooding
A collaboration of plant and soil scientists from across the UK has shown a grass hybrid species could help reduce the impact of flooding. The BBSRC-funded scientists, from Rothamsted Research, the James Hutton Institute, Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences (IBERS) at Aberystwyth University, Lancaster University and the University of Nottingham, used a hybridised […]
Is it time to bring back straw burning?
With increased resistance to herbicides and no new active ingredients on the horizon alongside increasingly stringent stewardship of products such as metaldehyde, how long can growers sustain viable crop populations in areas where these two problems exist at such high levels? The pressure on agronomists to protect the active ingredients currently available to growers through […]
Indirect Land Use Change proposal a blow for UK oilseed and protein supply
The warning comes following the publication of the draft opinion on the Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC) Proposal by the French MEP Corinne Lepage. As the European Parliament’s lead rapporteur on the Environment Committee, Ms Lepage will set the tone for forthcoming debates on the contribution that biofuels can make to the Renewable Energy Directive […]
Where there’s muck…
CH4e, the developer of innovative small-scale on-farm anaerobic digestion systems, will be among a select panel of experts offering insights into how to deploy renewables to generate energy from waste and reduce operational costs at Sustainability Live 2013 (16-18 April, NEC Birmingham). Juliet de Falbe, founding director of CH4e, will examine the challenges facing the […]
CLA encourages farmers to pursue anaerobic digestion
Welcoming this emphasis on the many benefits of AD to farming Henry Robinson, Deputy President, CLA said: “I am hopeful that efforts to raise the profile of anaerobic digestion on-farm, such as the recognition granted within the Ecosystems Market Task Force report, will drive uptake in the market. The benefits of anaerobic digestion to farming […]
Plants communicate what type of light they want
Enormous amounts of energy are wasted in greenhouses where our food is grown as a result of the plants receiving too much and the wrong kind of light. This can also stress and damage the plants. Researchers at Chalmers University of Technology are working on a globally unique method to measure how much and what […]
Importance of renewables in the spotlight for young poultry farmers
Members of the NFU and ABN’s Poultry Industry Programme visited a farm in Norfolk where they got to see solar arrays, a wind turbine built especially for the visit and a potentially ground-breaking biomass unit which could eventually be used for transforming chicken litter into clean and cost-efficient energy. NFU poultry adviser Chris Dickinson said: […]
Changing attitudes to water
Water is something people in Britain think little about until the water companies announce restrictions on the use of hosepipes for gardens and washing cars. But that needs to change according to Ralph Early, Head of the Food Science and Agri-Food Supply Chain Management Department at the university in Shropshire. Speaking after marking World Water […]
BCPC supports UK call for EU impact assessment of neonicotinoid insecticide use suspension
On 15 March, a proposed two-year suspension of seed treatment use of the neonicotinoid insecticides, clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiamethixam, on specified crops attractive to bees, failed to gain the necessary qualified majority vote from EU member states. It is tempting to conclude that the result was due to rejection of the findings of the recent […]
