āWe are delighted to see the first commercial crop of Ben Lawers this year. Hopefully this cultivar will pioneer innovation in climate resilient crop category, deliver exceptional quality and make the way for further climate-resilient cultivars that are currently on trials at the Instituteā This week, UK blackcurrant farmers are harvesting a groundbreaking new crop of berries that have been bred to cope with Britainās changing climate. Named āBen Lawersā, the new variety is the fruit of a longstanding partnership between Lucozade Ribena Suntory, which uses 90 per cent of Britainās
āOur work shows that tree planting locations need to be carefully sited, taking into account soil conditions, otherwise the tree planting will not result in the desired increase in carbon storage and climate change mitigationā Planting huge numbers of trees to mitigate climate change is ānot always the best strategyā ā with some experimental sites in Scotland failing to increase carbon stocks, a new study co-authored by Hutton scientists has found. Experts analysed four locations in Scotland where birch trees were planted onto heather moorland ā and found that, over decades, there was no net
"This was only the second Arable Scotland, so it was ambitious to suddenly deliver this in a completely different way ā itās a huge credit to event partners SRUC, James Hutton Institute and AHDB with sponsors Hutchinsons, FAS, SEFARI, Scottish Society for Crop Research and The Scottish Farmer for their massive inputs"" The 2020 edition of Arable Scotland ā Scotlandās newest field event focussing on arable crops - took place online on 2nd July and was very well received: hundreds of e-delegates visited the eventās Virtual Field Map on the day, and many more have caught up with the eventās