ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ

A new soil testing service developed by researchers at ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ’s Crop Centre is set to transform how growers detect a major disease affecting onion crops.

Dr. Charlotte Allender, Head of the UK Vegetable Genebank at the School of Life Sciences, The ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ has been awarded the Veitch Memorial Medal by the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) for her work conserving vegetable crop genetic diversity.

Three academics from The ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ have been named in the New Year’s Honours List for their outstanding contributions to medical and environmental sciences.

The ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ is celebrating 75 years of plant science research at its internationally recognised Crop Centre – the UK’s leading research facility for vegetable growers.

The UK has a strong tradition in agriculture, including in growing fruits and vegetables. This sector is essential for the UK's economy, contributing £4.3 billion in 2022 and producing over 3 million tonnes of produce each year. However, the UK only produces 17% of the fruit and 55% of the vegetables it consumes, so there's a big push to increase domestic production and improve food security. Indeed, nationally, we need to increase our consumption of fruit and vegetables even more as, collectively, we’re not meeting the minimum recommendation of 5-a-day.

The future of farming has been highlighted at the Warwickshire Rural Hub’s inaugural major farming conference.

‘Preparing for the Farm of the Future: What Will It Look Like?’ was hosted at the ÉñÂí¸£ÀûӰƬ’s Innovation Campus Stratford-upon-Avon this week (12th March), with speakers including ‘Cheerful Charlie’ from Clarkson’s Farm – the popular Amazon Prime series.