East Malling Research (EMR) has said its recent research in water management could play a significant role in achieving goals set out by John Beddington.
The government’s chief scientist said in his Foresight report released last month that the world needs to use 40 per cent less water and produce 40 per cent more food within the next 20 years.
EMR scientists looks at water management have found a way to significantly reduce the amount of water used to grow potatoes commercially, after transferring the knowledge from early work with strawberries.
Commenting on Professor Beddington’s report, Will Sibley, chairman of the East Malling Trust said: “This report, like the many others that have come before it, highlights the scale of the challenges that face the world’s ability to feed itself.
“What we urgently need is not more reports, but for governments across the world to accept the findings and properly fund scientific research that has the ability to increase the intensity of our food production and ensure our food security through higher yields and lower inputs, of water, fertiliser and energy.”
Currently 75 million tonnes of water, which is a quarter of all the water used each year by the agricultural industries in England and Wales, is applied to potatoes. The intensive irrigation applied by growers helps to reduce the incidence of common scab on the tubers’ skin and to increase yields as the
Thanks to funding from DEFRA, the team at EMR in Kent, has now shown that it is possible to produce one tonne of Grade 1 potatoes using just 23 tonnes of water - significantly less than the current 42-60 tonnes industry average for the same yield.
The EMR team, led by Dr Mark Else, also increased the potato yield from the industry standard range of 45-50 tonnes per hectare to 78 tonnes per hectare.
Dr Else said: “We have just lifted the 2010 crop and are confident that we will have improved on last year’s yields, and importantly used less water and fertigation (fertilizer delivered via irrigation) while maintaining the yields and quality of the potatoes produced.
“Given that our trial took place on less than one hectare, we recognise that it will be difficult challenging to replicate these results exactly on a commercial scale. However, we have achieved this with our work on strawberry and we believe that the potato se trials, now in their second year, demonstrate that with water scheduling and drip fertigation it is possible to dramatically reduce the amount of water and chemicals applied to potatoes commercially.”
The team is confident that by the end of the three-year trial in 2011, EMR will have produced a set of guidelines and techniques to help growers using drip irrigation to know when and how much water to apply.
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