CropsEngland's barley harvest falls to a 14-year low as wheat edges up
Provisional Defra figures put English barley production at 3.7m tonnes, down 11%, and wheat at 10.8m tonnes, up 0.8%, while feed barley trades at a wide discount to wheat.
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VegetablesFog-fed roots: Airponix and Dyson Farming test home-grown seed potatoes in England
Start-up Airponix and Dyson Farming have begun a two-year, Defra-funded trial to see whether England can grow its own disease-free G0 seed potatoes in a fog-based system, at under half today's cost.
AgrotechUK Agri-Tech Centre to cut 60% of staff and stop running its own trials
The publicly backed UK Agri-Tech Centre will shrink from 130 to 50 staff and hand its 43 testing facilities to partners, becoming a matchmaker between agtech firms, researchers and farmers from 2027.
LivestockSmaller cows, bigger calves: how data and better sheds lift suckler herds
AHDB's beef genetics lead says recorded data and breeding values help find efficient cows, while a building specialist shows a Cambridgeshire shed with a quarter of the roof ventilation its 45 cows need.
AgrotechUK fermentation firm Mycofeast buys New Zealand dairy-protein startup Daisy Lab
Mycofeast has acquired Daisy Lab, a New Zealand startup that makes cow-free whey proteins by precision fermentation, led by a bovine lactoferrin programme it now plans to scale up and file with regulators.
VegetablesPotato trials test late foliar potash, biostimulants and flower strips against aphids
At Dyson Farming Research in Lincolnshire, trials are testing late foliar potassium for dry matter, seaweed and microbial biostimulants, low-emission nitrogen products and floral tramlines that draw hoverflies to eat aphids.
AgrotechProbability forecasts show farmers the odds of rain and wind hour by hour
CatchmentAI's Probcast shows growers all 18 Met Office simulations behind a forecast, with traffic-light spray windows. A Defra Adopt project led by Northamptonshire farmer Stuart Tabernor seeks 70 growers to measure its value.
LivestockMeasure colostrum, not just vaccinate: a pig vet on the first hours of a piglet's life
Writing in Pig World, Yorkshire pig vet Louise Blenkhorn says farms should test sow colostrum with a Brix refractometer and check piglet intake by blood sampling, aiming for at least 200g per piglet.
LivestockUK farmers told not to trade leftover bluetongue vaccines as cases pass 3,300
The Veterinary Medicines Directorate warns that BTV-3 vaccines are prescription-only and cannot be passed between keepers, after reports of sales on social media, as confirmed bluetongue cases in Great Britain reach 3,338.
LivestockMisting, a water-based air scrubber and zero-soya diets at an award-winning university pig unit
Harper Adams University's 230-sow pig unit, now weaning over 37 pigs per sow a year, lost no pigs to this summer's heat after installing evaporative cooling, and is trialling a filterless air-cleaning system that cut ammonia by 40 percent and finishing diets with no soya.
AgrotechCultivated meat makers report 19 times more protein from the same bioreactor volume
Israel's Ever After Foods and Scotland's Roslin Technologies grew pig stem cells on an edible plant scaffold and report 19 times higher protein productivity than a stirred-tank benchmark, a result they say could cut the cost of cultivated meat if it holds at scale.
EnvironmentEngland opens a one-stop flood advice site and targets 200,000 better-protected homes
At the start of Flood Action Week the Environment Agency launched Flood Action Online, a single site for flood risk checks, warnings and Met Office alerts, as the UK government set a target of better flood protection for 200,000 properties by 2029.
EnvironmentYorkshire declared in drought as farmers are told to prepare for a wet, stormy autumn
The Environment Agency has put Yorkshire in drought after its fifth-driest April-September on record, England's third drought in five years, while the Met Office warns of wetter, stormier weather that could bring run-off and erosion.