Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/P010199/1
Managing pollination services using precision agronomy tools
Training Grant Award
- Lead Supervisor:
- Dr L Dicks, University of East Anglia, Biological Sciences
- Grant held at:
- University of East Anglia, Biological Sciences
- Science Area:
- Terrestrial
- Overall Classification:
- Terrestrial
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Crop science
- Earth & environmental
- Conservation Ecology
- Abstract:
- The use of in-field data to enhance the efficiency of agricultural operations, known as 'precision agriculture', is developing very rapidly. Many farm businesses now use precision software to improve management and reduce artificial inputs. This project will conduct the underlying research needed to develop a pollination module for the Omnia Precision software package (www.omniaprecision.co.uk) recently launched by the CASE partner Hutchinsons. Omnia Precision is a multi-layer system that can be populated with data from multiple sources, including imaging, remote sensing, or data actively entered while walking the fields. The project thus combines the tools of precision agriculture with the latest developments in pollinator ecology and conservation. The Omnia pollination module will quantify and map pollinator resources and pollination service demand on a farm and identify pollinator resource deficits specific to pollinators of the crops being grown. Hutchinsons is the leading UK agricultural and horticultural input advice and supply company, providing agronomic advice and services to 8,000 farmers in the UK. Pollination is increasingly considered an agricultural input, and this research will enable Hutchinsons to provide the highest standards of agronomic advice on pollination to its clients, in keeping with its company objective. Globally, pollinators are worth $235 to $577 billion per year for their direct contribution to production of crops, including many fruits, vegetables and oils, and demand for pollination in agriculture is growing. Many pollinators are declining in range and/or abundance and effective conservation action to reverse this is a major societal priority. The agricultural industry has a role to play, through sustainable management of pollination services from both wild and managed pollinators. The recent global assessment of pollinators and pollination conducted by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service (IPBES) identified ecological intensification as a key strategy for supporting pollinators and pollination services worldwide. This is an approach to farming in which ecological functions linked to food production such as pollination, pest regulation and soil nutrient cycling, are actively managed to increase yield. This project represents a major step forward in operationalising ecological intensification for real farms, by enabling active management of pollination services at farm level. The student will map floral resources and insect pollinator abundance over several growing seasons on study farms already working with the Omnia software. Insect visits to flowering crops will be quantified and their statistical relationship with in-field yield maps and other precision agriculture parameters characterised. The accuracy of simplified estimators of floral resources - land use maps, remotely sensed images and non-expert counts of a subset of plant species - will be compared at a range of spatial scales and the most accurate used for the Omnia pollination module. The module will incorporate pollinator dependency values, the identities of dominant pollinators for specific crops, and dynamic pollen and nectar demands by those pollinators, from available datasets and models, including a honey bee nectar and pollen demand model developed by Hutchinsons. This research fits NERC's strategic direction because it is focused on how food production can benefit from natural resources (pollinators) through changes to farm management. Pollinators are explicitly highlighted as an example of benefiting from natural resources in NERC's Strategy document The Business of the Environment. In keeping with NERC's approach of working in partnership to achieve a sustainable agri-food sector, this project has been co-designed with business. It will deliver a combination of scientific outputs, excellent student training and added value for an existing CASE partner product.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/P010199/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- DTG - directed
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Industrial CASE
This training grant award has a total value of £88,292
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Fees | Total - RTSG | Total - Student Stipend |
|---|---|---|
| £17,296 | £11,000 | £59,998 |
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