Potato LITE – Low Intensity Tillage Enhancements for Sustaining Potato Production in Future Regenerative Agricultural Systems

马铃薯种植作业的强度和频率对土壤健康造成损害，不符合目前对再生农业和净零的推动。深，去核苗床被认为是必要的行业内，以避免块茎损害。虽然减少耕作技术使谷物系统的再生农业成为可能，但这种技术尚未开发用于块根作物生产，如马铃薯。将来，在更多的农场轮换种植块根作物以减轻病虫害压力将更加重要，特别是在没有杀线虫剂的情况下。然而，考虑到整个轮换期间再生农业的总体政策方向，地主/种植者越来越不愿意将它们包括在内。因此，对于供应链稳定性和出口（> 8900万英镑/年）来说，快速推进创新以降低未来马铃薯生产的风险至关重要。马铃薯生产所需劳动力是谷物的8倍，对农村经济也至关重要。该项目旨在量化当前商业最佳实践与新型低强度耕作机械和可持续耕作技术相比对土壤健康和温室气体排放的影响，以验证更好的生产系统。这个经验丰富的财团（由创新型中小企业、跨国食品公司和相关学术专家组成）希望使一次性、浅层、再生马铃薯种植成为可能，并具有成本效益。一旦该项目证明了环境和商业效益，这种新型的生产系统和栽培机械将改变整个根菜行业，并使其有效过渡到可行的净零未来。该项目将与农民和更广泛的供应链共同开发新的种植设备和系统，重点是减少所需操作的深度、强度和数量。还将开发一系列工具，这些工具能够将降低强度、分区土壤耕作与在不需要去石的土壤中种植相结合。将量化覆盖作物对土壤健康的影响，但检查对病理学/虫害的任何混淆影响超出了项目范围。在项目的最后一年将进行重要的KE，以确保行业能够放心地采用创新发展，包括为种植者在农场使用开发物理和数字指南，直接向更广泛的部门展示技术，并为下一代种植者开发新的教材。

The intensity and frequency of potato cultivation operations are damaging to soil health and do not fit with the current drive towards Regenerative Agriculture and Net Zero. Deep, destoned seedbeds are judged as a necessity within the industry to avoid tuber damage. Whilst reduced tillage technologies are enabling regenerative agriculture in cereal systems, this technology has not been developed for root crop production, such as potatoes. It will be even more important in the future to rotate root crops across more farms to relieve pest/disease pressures, particularly in the absence of nematicides. Yet landlords/growers are increasingly averse to including them given the overall policy direction of regenerative agriculture across the rotation. Therefore, it is essential for supply chain stability and exports (\>£89M/yr) that innovation is progressed rapidly to de-risk future potato production. With potato production employing 8x more labour than cereals, it is also crucial to the rural economy.This project aims to quantify the effects on soil health and GHG emissions of current commercial best practice compared to novel, lower-intensity tillage machinery and sustainable cultivation techniques, in order to validate better production systems. The experienced consortium (comprising innovative SMEs, multi-national food companies and relevant academic expertise) wants to make one-pass, shallow-depth, regenerative potato cultivation possible and cost-effective. Once the environmental and business benefits have been proven by the project, this novel production system and cultivation machinery will transform the entire root vegetable sector and enable its effective transition towards a viable, Net Zero future. This will make the £824M potato sector resilient to rising costs and environmental change, ensuring its long-term success.The project will co-develop new cultivation equipment and systems with farmers and the wider supply chain, focusing on reducing the depth, intensity and number of operations required. A range of implements capable of integrating reduced intensity, zoned soil cultivation with planting in soils which do not require destoning will also be developed. The effects of cover crops on soil health will be quantified, however it is beyond the scope of the project to examine any confounding effects on pathology/pests. Significant KE will be conducted in the final year of the project to ensure that the innovative developments can be adopted with confidence by the industry, including developing physical and digital guides for growers to use on farm, demonstrating the technology direct to the wider sector, and developing new teaching materials for the next generation of growers.