The James Hutton Institute receives a £3 million investment from Scottish Enterprise
The James Hutton Institute has received a £3 million investment from Scottish Enterprise for its new high throughput phenotyping facility, part of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC), housed in its Crop Innovation Centre (CIC).
The facility allows researchers to assess the plants architecture and health using sensors and lasers to map the plant in detail and how this is then influenced by genetic make-up and changes in the environment. Together with automation and AI, the facility will accelerate crop innovation. By discovering new traits more quickly it will provide a faster route to market for plant breeders serving the agriculture, horticulture, pharmaceutical and food and drink sectors.
The new investment comes in addition to the £62 million invested through the Tay Cities Region Deal (TCRD) by the UK and Scottish Governments, which funded two new innovations centres, the APGC and the International Barley Hub (IBH), both created in partnership with the University of Dundee Plant Sciences Division.
The cutting-edge plant phenotyping platform is designed to create controlled climate conditions that crops will experience in the future. It integrates automated plant handling, and irrigation and climate control, together with advanced imaging technologies to screen large populations of plants and select those best suited to the future climate conditions.
It will enable researchers to replicate current, and predicted, global crop production conditions, thus accelerating the breeding and growing of climate resilient and low input crops, enhancing the APGC’s research on the issues facing global food, non-food and pharmaceutical crops.
The facility is part of a suite, combining advanced phenotyping, automation, AI-driven analytics and a high-performance computing cluster that supports pioneering research and industry collaboration. As an open platform it will enable national and international collaboration to attract projects that cross academia and industry and ensure a whole sector approach to a more sustainable future for agriculture.
Speaking of this funding, the Hutton’s Chief Executive, Professor Colin Campbell said, “This is a very welcome investment from Scottish Enterprise as this equipment is facilitating some of the most pioneering research into crop resilience being carried out anywhere in the world.
“In a recent economic impact report from BiGGAR into the Hutton, it was noted that for every £1 of funding received, we deliver £15 in economic value for the UK economy, of which £9 is retained in Scotland. It’s thanks to this type of investment that we continue to make the impact we do, using science to secure a more sustainable future, keeping food costs down, protecting livelihoods and making a positive contribution to our economy”.
Scottish Enterprise Chief Executive Adrian Gillespie said, “The new phenotyping equipment, supported by Scottish Enterprise, builds on existing facilities at The James Hutton Institute including the International Barley Hub and the Advanced Plant Growth Centre. The cutting-edge facilities in Invergowrie combine innovative technology for the industrial biotechnology and agricultural sectors and will help create hundreds of new jobs, boost productivity and support scale-ups to benefit the Scottish economy.
“Our support will enable more businesses to use the facilities to translate world class research into commercial ventures with the potential to scale.”
Dr Rob Hancock, Deputy Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre, said, “This new facility accelerates the identification of key traits for crop resilience, yield improvement and stress tolerance, climate change adaptation, sustainable agriculture and precision farming. By leveraging Hutton expertise in genetics, we will enhance industry collaboration to bring the new varieties needed to support agriculture more quickly. Moreover, the facility directly supports new developments in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and vertical farming.”
For research and collaboration enquiries please contact The James Hutton Institute. Facility tours and demonstrations are available on request
Contact Information
Elaine Walker
Notes to editors
For more information contact Media Officer, Joyce Reid, joyce.reid@hutton.ac.uk, or on 07931 551 988
Notes to editors
- The suite has four climate-controlled growth rooms that can be programmed individually
- Temperature can be set from +5°C to +40°C
- humidity can be set from 30% to 95% and
- CO₂ levels can be set from ambient to 1,000 ppm.
- Lighting is provided by a sunlike LED system, far-red capable, with adjustable PSS value
- Airflow can be varied and is fitted with high efficiency particulate air (HEPA) filtration and negative/positive pressure options.
- The Advanced Plant Growth Centre, together with the International Barley Hub (IBH), is part of the Tay Cities Regional Deal partnership supported by £45m from the UK Government and £17m from the Scottish Government.
- Over the next 10 years, the Crop Innovation Centre is projected to contribute to over 900 collaborative industry projects supporting an additional 2,600 jobs in the UK, of which 1,760 will be in Scotland and 470 in Tayside. It has been estimated that it will contribute over £900m GVA to the UK economy, over half of which will be in Scotland.
- The APGC and IBH offer a unique combination of world leading science and state of the art facilities for field, farm and lab that deliver technological and digital innovation focussed on future proofing crop production, enhancing food and drink security, managing our natural resources sustainably and supporting thriving rural communities in Scotland and across the globe.
About Scottish Enterprise
Scottish Enterprise (SE) is Scotland’s national economic development agency and a non-departmental public body of the Scottish Government. It supports businesses to innovate and scale to transform the Scottish economy by focusing on new market opportunities through targeted investment, innovation and internationalisation.
Follow us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/scottish-enterprise/
The James Hutton Institute is a world-leading, multi-site scientific organisation encompassing a distinctive range of integrated strengths in land, crop, waters, environmental and socio-economic science. The Institute has a staff of nearly 500 and 125 PhD students and takes its name from the 18th-century Scottish Enlightenment scientist, James Hutton, widely regarded as the founder of geology and agronomy. www.hutton.ac.uk
The Tay Cities Region Deal is a partnership between local, Scottish and UK governments and the private, academic and voluntary sectors which seeks to create a smarter and fairer Angus, Dundee, Fife and Perth & Kinross under the headings Inclusive Tay; Innovative Tay; International Tay; Connected Tay and An Empowered Tay.
The Scottish Government and UK Government will each invest up to £150 million in the Tay Cities Region Deal over 10 years, subject to final approval of robust business cases.
As of 30 September 2024, over £231million has been approved by Governments and the Partnership for investment and over 2,541 jobs have been created.
This central investment from both Governments has the potential to lever in £400m of investment over 15 years, of which more than £180million has already been secured by Projects.
Full and further information on the progress the Deal has made to date on securing investment and jobs, can be found within the Annual Performance Report located on the Tay Cities Region Deal website - Publications | Tay Cities Deal.