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https://www.positive.news/environment/putting-slugs-on-the-map-farmers-pioneer-precision-crop-protection/>
"Slugs are the slimy bane of many a farmer’s life, but their days of munching
on precious crops could be numbered thanks to a new tool that predicts where
the pests will strike.
It’s the result of groundbreaking research from a consortium led by the British
On-Farm Innovation Network (BOFIN).
One strand of the three-year, £2.6m project – funded by Defra – employed a
network of ‘slug sleuth’ farmers working as field researchers to suss out the
molluscs’ favoured soil types.
The monitoring has led to the development of a digital field mapping tool,
which pinpoints vulnerable slug hotspots, meaning farmers can deploy pesticides
with new precision instead of randomly treating entire fields.
Growers taking part in a pilot were able to slash the use of slug pellets by an
average of 50% as a result. Widescale adoption across the UK’s arable industry
could save farmers £6m a year, researchers estimate.
BOFIN founder Tom Allen-Stevens said the new innovation was not the project’s
only major breakthrough. “No one has used farmers to gather scientific evidence
like this before, so one of our biggest findings is that farmers can do
research,” he said. “Farmers deserve more respect for their intelligence: no
one knows the land better.”"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
