Hold It There: Optimising Nature-Based Flood Storage in Rural Catchments

Flooding is becoming more frequent as rainfall intensifies, prompting growing interest in nature-based approaches that work with the landscape to slow, store and filter water. Temporary storage areas are small features that capture and temporarily hold runoff, typically in rural upper parts of a catchment, before slowly releasing it. However, there is limited evidence on how to design these measures so they perform reliably during large storm events.

Mixing it up - Mainstreaming crop mixtures in Scottish/UK and European farming (ENRA 2025 poster)

Growing crop mixtures can increase yields, reduce input costs and support biodiversity. We have identified species/variety combinations, management conditions, and machinery adaptations that optimise these benefits from crop mixtures. This work has direct impact on farming practice and uptake by Scottish farmers through >50 collaborative trials to grow mixtures on farms across Scotland. By working with farmers to design and monitor trials, we are quantifying mixture performance relative to monocrops and demonstrating the technical feasibility of mixture cropping.

Collaborate to Innovate - A Workshop on Ticks and Tick-Borne Diseases

Ticks are external blood-sucking parasites that feed on a variety of hosts including livestock, wildlife and humans. The most common tick in the UK is the sheep tick (Ixodes [I.] ricinus) which is indiscriminate, feeding on a wide range of hosts, from birds to small and large mammals, including humans, whereas many other species of ticks feed more selectively on specific animal species.