Cereals

Virus para sanar cerdos, robots o sensores para alimentos: la innovación que llega al agro

- Virus para atacar la salmonella en el aparato digestivo de los cerdos, huevos de desecho para alimentar insectos, sensores que muestran el estado de los alimentos o hasta robots haciendo de...

Digital tools aid sustainable pest management new study finds

- Digital tools can help smallholder farmers access relevant, timely information about sustainable pest management, improving crop production and livelihoods. These are the findings of a study...

GIS, localiza en ERPagro tus cultivos - Hispatec

- Bajo las siglas de GIS se agrupa toda aquella dinámica de visualizar geoposicionada la información que lleve asociados datos de localización geográfica (también se conoce como

By Harry Langford, Innovation Director at the UK Agri-Tech Centre, who shares his thoughts on the event.The Northern CEA Symposium brought together growers, researchers, technologists and agri-tech businesses in Sheffield with a shared focus on turning innovation in controlled environment agriculture into solutions for commercial growers. Across the day, presentations explored practical challenges facing the sector, from nutrient efficiency and water use to substrates, sensing and circular inputs. The emphasis was consistently on application, including how technologies might reduce costs, improve control, and operate reliably in real production environments. New approaches to sensing and monitoring were discussed as a way to give operators clearer, faster feedback on crop performance, helping them make decisions with greater confidence. Substrate innovation also featured, reflecting growing pressure to move beyond traditional materials while maintaining consistency at scale. Alongside this, approaches to reduce the energy footprint of CEA were tabled and their economics explored. What stood out was the openness of the community, with speakers acknowledging the need for further testing, integration and validation, reinforcing the importance of environments where technologies can be trialled under realistic conditions and assessed against commercial priorities. Our involvementThe UK Agri-Tech Centre took part in the symposium, organised by UK Urban AgriTech and the University of Sheffield, to share how we support CEA innovation through test, trial and demonstration and how our new Greenhouse to Global programme is supporting innovative CEA technologies to scale. Too often, promising technologies struggle to move beyond pilot scale because they lack credible, independent evidence of performance in commercially representative environments. We outlined how our programme supports SMEs working across sensing, substrates, lighting and control and how we are testing these technologies together to produce commercial case studies for specific industry use cases. The companies we spotlightedThrough the ACDC spinach production case study, we showcased how Ostara, Fotenix and Vertically Urban are working together to address core challenges in vertical farming: consistent quality, reduced energy use and reduced labour costs. The case study collectively illustrates how integrated control, crop monitoring and tuneable lighting can support more responsive, dataled growing decisions, saving 25% in energy use. We also featured GyroPlant and its substrate-free approach, overviewing the work that we have done with them on both leafy green production and strawberry propagation, to reduce the reliance on unsustainable substrates whilst maintaining performance at commercial scale. Throughout the day, the research and development presented demonstrated how collaboration can help CEA innovation progress from early ideas into solutions that can be adopted across the sector. Alongside the technical discussions, UK Urban AgriTech also used the symposium to float a thought-provoking idea: the potential for a cross-CEA umbrella organisation that better represents the full breadth of controlled environment production in the UK. The concept was framed around bringing together sectors, from crops to mushrooms, insects and seaweed, to improve knowledge transfer and engage more proactively with policy development. Again, this reiterates the importance of the sector working together to maximise the potential of CEA in the UK. If you would like to work with the UK Agri-Tech Centre, get in touch at [email protected]

26/03/2026 -

Iowa State’s Pest-ID team, global researchers, work to build an app to help farmers

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Generation of Herbicide?Resistant Alfalfa Germplasm via Prime Editing

- ABSTRACTAlfalfa (Medicago sativa) is the most widely cultivated forage crop worldwide, owing to its high protein content, balanced amino acid profile, and abundance of vitamins and minerals. However,...

Polyphagozerra coffeae (Lepidoptera: Cossidae)—a wood-boring pest of coffee and other tree crops

01/06/2026 - The red coffee borer, Polyphagozerra coffeae (Nietner) (formerly Zeuzera coffeae)—native to South and Southeast Asia—is a highly polyphagous wood-boring pest. This review summarizes the biology,...

Drivers and barriers to DSS adoption in European crop protection: insights from a machine learning analysis of farmer and advisor surveys

- Integrated pest management (IPM) prioritizes non-chemical alternatives for managing pests and/or diseases, reserving chemicals as last solution, when economically and environmentally justified. The...

Planting management method based on field fort soil nutrient detector and AI big data

30/06/2026 - The invention relates to the technical field of agricultural informatization planting management, and discloses a planting management method based on a field hamburger soil nutrient detector and...