News article

Available to all - access the online flip-book and downloadable PDF versions of Issue 58 – Spring 2025.

Niab Landmark: Winter 2024/25

In this issue:

Available to all - access the online flip-book and downloadable PDF versions of Issue 58 – Spring 2025.

Niab Landmark: Spring 2025

To address this challenge, a consortium led by InnoPhyte Consulting Ltd, in collaboration with FlexFarming and Niab, is pioneering an innovative approach for commercial Totally Controlled Environment Agriculture (TCEA) strawberry production. The initiative aims to enhance productivity, optimise resource use, and improve profitability for UK TCEA soH fruit businesses.

 The adult bugs were first recorded in the UK in 2018 and for the first time in 2024, we found juvenile stages.

The pest not only causes damage to fresh fruit and vegetables but can also wander into homes in the autumn to keep warm, emitting an unpleasant odour… hence stink bug.

The briefing, held at the Oxford Farming Conference 2025 in January, brought together an influential panel of industry leaders comprising Defra chief scientific adviser Professor Gideon Henderson, Food Standards Agency chair Professor Susan Jebb, Thanet Earth technical director Robert James, Bayer Crop Science, Head of UK, Ireland Nordics, Nils Bauer and Niab chief executive Professor Mario Caccamo.

Whether it’s a tree in your garden or in a curated or nursery collection, we can help you identify the variety of your apple trees.

DNA analysis precisely compares your trees to those in the National Fruit Collections. Matched samples then provide a wealth of information on your variety’s history and cultivation. If the analysis is not found in the reference collections, the result provides a firm basis for research into lost or local varieties, or alternatively for the naming of known seedlings.

We caught up with a few of Niab's scientists and they told us about what they are currently working on and a little about how they got to their current roles.

The nestboxes, donated by schoolchildren from Bar Hill Primary School, will provide homes for nature at Niab’s recently renovated offices and laboratories in Histon, just outside Cambridge.

The expansion of Niab’s bird nestbox numbers has come at the perfect time. The current boxes sited at Park Farm have all been successfully occupied over the past two years by Blue and Great Tits.

It is hoped that more boxes will also lead to House Sparrows, a bird of the highest conservation concern, nesting once again at Niab.

The multi-partner exhibit, staffed by scientists from Niab, the John Innes Centre, Rothamsted Research, the Roslin Institute and the University of Lincoln, showcased UK taxpayer-funded research and innovation taking place across a range of sectors and technologies, including digital agriculture, robotics, advanced crop and livestock breeding, vertical farming and AI.

FSA Chief Scientific Officer Professor Robin May and Deputy Director of Science Evidence and Research Rick Mumford were joined by FSA colleagues along with members of the WSB Wine Standards Inspection Team, to learn about the continuing development of vine and wine research at East Malling.

They were also briefed on Niab’s ongoing research to maximise yield potential of soft and tree fruit crops and Niab’s novel approaches to harnessing natural ecosystems as a means for managing insect pest and disease in fruit crops.