Collaboration Fund

Les Firbank  (Leeds

Jonathan Leake (Sheffield)

Sue Hartley (York)

The overall aim:

·         To pump-prime collaborative agricultural systems research among the White Rose Universities, leading to the submission of at least one major collaborative grant proposal on increasing nutrient, carbon and energy-efficiency in agriculture.

This project will build an interdisciplinary network to develop more nutrient, carbon and energy-efficient agricultural systems, focussed on Spen Farm, a large mixed farm owned by Leeds University. This White Rose partnership not only assembles one of the few teams with the multidisciplinary expertise and systems approach needed to deliver more resource-efficient agricultural systems, but in so doing will develop the capacity to address the key priorities of the Research Councils in the areas of food security, low carbon and energy-efficient futures.  Crucially, our partnership will enable the linking of biophysical processes from molecular to catchment scales, under current commercial agricultural management systems. 

We propose to conduct a baseline study of Spen Farm to provide critical supporting data and establish effective partnerships to enable successful grant applications.  Spen Farm is an ideal research site, being conveniently located, providing a wide range of soil types and crops, a diverse range of past and ongoing research, and the infrastructure to support large-scale experiments