A set of independent potato trials at the Dyson Farming Research Centre in Lincolnshire is testing nutrition, biostimulants and natural pest control to give growers practical agronomy, Farmers Weekly reported. Many are supported by the Defra-funded Innovate UK Adopt programme.
One trial applies foliar potassium as crops begin to senesce, later than usual, to see whether it raises tuber dry matter. "If successful, this could benefit the processing sector, where increased dry matter is important for a marketable crop," said Dyson Farming Research crop scientist Christine Jones. Foliar biostimulant programmes are being retested after 2025 trials showed a positive financial response, mainly through protection against heat and drought stress rather than extra growth, she said. Plots are two rows wide and 12m long.
Other trials test in-furrow microbial products and foliar endophytic bacteria, a biostimulant made from farmed seaweed that may be more consistent than wild seaweed extracts, and a nanoproduct meant to improve nitrogen uptake from foliar sprays. A low-emission experiment replaces part of the conventional nitrogen with alternatives including fungal pellets, chicken manure pellets and wool fleece pellets, topped up with artificial N to a farm standard of 200kg N/ha, with NDVI scans tracking growth. A combined trial looks for the mix of soil and foliar nutrients and microbes that achieves yield with the fewest inputs.
For integrated pest management, floral tramlines are being tested to bring natural predators into the crop, especially hoverflies, whose larvae eat aphids while adults feed on pollen and nectar. Different flowers and lures based on volatile compounds that may signal aphids are compared, and acoustic monitors detect hoverflies moving in from surrounding habitat.
Aphids spread potato viruses and processing buyers pay on dry matter, so trials that put numbers on cheaper or lower-input options are directly useful to growers. The findings were presented at Farmers Weekly's Arable Insights Live: Potatoes event on 17 September.
Photo: Mat Fascione / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Farmers Weekly
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