91¸£Àû

Robot strip intercropping: a synthesis of traditional knowledge and modern agri-tech

Secondary Supervisor(s): Professor Jim Monaghan

University of Registration: Harper Adams University

BBSRC Research Themes:

• Sustainable Agriculture and Food (Plant and Crop Science)

Project Outline

Intercropping or polyculture is the traditional practice of growing more than one crop in the same place at the same time, with the Three Sisters of corn, beans and squash grown by Native Americans being the most famous example. As agriculture has mechanised, intercropping has been replaced by monoculture systems with greater reliance on fertilisers and pesticides. Agricultural vehicles have got larger, heavier and much more expensive, compacting soils and increasing costs.

The Hands Free Hectare project started at Harper Adams University in 2017, and uses small, light autonomous vehicles to reverse the trend and protect soils. In 2023 the vehicles were programmed to sow crops in 2m strips, the world’s first robot strip intercropping, and the system has been refined in following seasons. Strip intercropping allows each crop to be managed independently with sowing and harvesting at the optimal times and inputs applied at the optimal rates. As crops develop at different times (relay cropping), the demands for resources such as light are at different times, known as temporal complementarity and so edge rows of each strip benefit from edge effects. Our experiments show that cereal grain yields of edge rows are consistently around 150% of centre rows, so that a 10-row wide strip gives the yield of 11 rows.

The experiment was established on its current site in autumn 2024 and will be compared to the other long-term field experiments at HAU, the traffic and tillage since 2011 and regenerative agriculture since 2023.

The overall aim is to support the development of robot strip intercropping as a sustainable and productive system of agriculture. Objectives are to investigate crop physiology and how neighbouring rows interact both above and below ground, measure soil health metrics (e.g. penetrometer resistance, earthworm counts), and resilience to biotic and abiotic stresses, in comparison to the other long-term trials managed as monocultures with conventional machinery.