A project bringing trials of precision-bred cereal crops onto commercial farms for the first time in Europe is now underway in England.
Trial plots of a precision-bred wheat variety have now been harvested, marking the start of a ground-breaking new project.
PROBITY – A Platform to Rate Organisms Bred for Improved Traits and Yield – is trialling the production and processing of precision-bred crops to accelerate understanding of their value to sustainable farming.
Led by the British On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN), it is a three-year £2.2m multi-partner project, funded by Defra’s Farming Innovation Programme, which is delivered by Innovate UK.
Farmers are being encouraged to get involved with the project by joining the Sequence Circle, a new community set up to lead discussion on precision-bred crops and help steer the project.
These crops can be created through gene editing, a widely used technology that enables scientists to make changes to plant DNA, like those that occur naturally, but introduced in a precise, targeted manner.
The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Act, which was approved last year, allows for the release and marketing of certain gene-edited plants.
The post-Brexit law change currently makes England the only country in Europe where this novel material can be grown in farmers’ fields.
The seed harvested from plots at the John Innes Centre near Norwich will be multiplied up during 2025, to enable farmers to grow trials of the crop the following year.
Two further cereal varieties are being grown in glasshouses at Rothamsted Research, and once harvested this autumn, will also be multiplied up to be trialled on farms.
The three varieties will be grown on commercial farms and subjected to testing and scrutiny by farmers, scientists and food manufacturers to establish their potential.
The three cereal varieties in the project include a wheat with superior baking, toasting and processing properties; a barley making high lipid, high energy forage aimed at lowering livestock methane emissions; and a wheat with a bigger bolder grain size promising a change in productivity.
Tom Allen-Stevens, Oxfordshire farmer and founder of BOFIN, said the project was 'incredibly important' for farming and food production in England.
He said: “We need to produce more nutritious food with fewer resources and with less impact on the environment. Scientists have been developing new crop varieties that could help us rise to that challenge.
"This project will bring those varieties from the laboratory to farmers’ fields where we can fully assess their potential, explore barriers to their adoption and pave the way for future innovation.”
