Investigating the commercial viability of growing Alliums in a protected cropping environment

The overall research focus of the project is to develop a novel cultivation system for growers to produce high-quality Allium crops with reduced environmental impacts and improved efficiency of crop cultivation while controlling for influences on yield and revenue.

Why do we want grow onions indoors?

Soil-borne diseases and adverse weather events (such as the drought and excessive heat experienced in the summer of 2022) are having an increasingly devastating impacts on traditional UK field crops. The spread of one particular disease affecting Alliums - Fusarium - is wiping out 10% of the UK's onion crop each year (figure taken from 2022 growing season), with individual crops reduced by up to 30% in some cases. The national farm gate value of losses from Fusarium infection is estimated at £13,200,000.

Aeroallium is designed to rigorously test the feasibility of moving Allium production from the field to a controlled environment (CE). It will deploy the combined expertise of Stourgarden (allium agronomy, commercial allium production, UK fresh produce supply chain) and the University of Essex (plant science, plant physiology, yield optimisation, data analysis) to solve the problem, and will build on recent advances in protected growing system design and related technologies.

A containerised trial facility has been commissioned to conduct growing trials in order to optimise a protected system for producing Alliums - a crop that has not yet been trialled in a CE in any meaningful way. Stourgarden and their grower partners will deploy over 50 year's of experience in the conditions needed to produce a successful Allium crop to the challenge. Extensive plant science expertise at the University of Essex will be leveraged to examine physiological responses to a range of inputs in order to accurately monitor and enhance correlations between inputs and yield.

Funding

This project is funded by Innovate UK.

Partners

This project is run in collaboration with Stourgarden Ltd.