Pioneer farms

Agroecosystems are inherently complex. One of the greatest challenges in understanding the drivers of crop health, across both space and time, is the collection of sufficiently rich data. However, agroecological research can be transformed by rapid advances in data sciences and digital technology, providing new opportunities for collecting, integrating, and analysing data. Technologies include static field cameras, proximal and remote sensing from farm machinery and drones, both of which expand our ability to monitor agroecosystems continuously and at fine spatial scales.

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In parallel, emerging molecular approaches are opening entirely new windows into agro-biodiversity. Air and soil sampling, environmental DNA (eDNA), and advanced diagnostic tools allow us to detect organisms that are otherwise difficult to observe directly. Together, these innovations offer unprecedented opportunities to scale up the monitoring of agro-biodiversity and ecosystem processes.

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The One Crop Health team is actively exploring how these technologies can be deployed across distributed farm networks to enhance both the depth and breadth of our data.

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This is where our pioneer farms come in. In 2025/26, we have established three pioneer farms in each of Denmark and England as testing grounds for next-generation data collection in winter wheat and oilseed rape crops.

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On these farms, we are trialling a range of approaches. These include mounting Open Weed Locators (OWLs) on farm machinery, and using a novel “VestCam” system to capture images of crops, weeds, pests, and diseases as researchers move through fields. We are also conducting drone surveys at multiple altitudes to monitor crop growth and pest, weed, and disease presence.

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To complement these visual approaches, we are deploying air-sampling devices to track the presence and timing of disease spores and pollen. Belowground, we are using bait lamina strips to assess soil mesofauna activity. Looking ahead, we plan to install camera traps for automated insect monitoring and to expand air, soil, and plant sampling for eDNA-based biodiversity assessment.

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Our ambition is to experiment broadly with these tools, evaluate their strengths and limitations, and progressively scale up the most effective approaches across the wider One Crop Health farm network. By doing so, we aim to build a new generation of data-rich agroecological research that better reflects, and can ultimately help manage, the complexity of real farming systems.