A network of farmers who carry out their own on-farm trials
SLIMERS Project Progress
Project Progress
Year 1: 1 June 2023 – 1 June 2024
Our Slug Sleuths are almost completely done now with the slug trap monitoring ready for scientists at Harper Adams University and CHAP to take a look at and analyse. This means we are now moving onto the next step within the project… Introducing the SLIMERS AI! Watch the webinar or read the article below to find out more.
We have now recruited all of our Slug Sleuths who are taking part in the trials in Year 1 of the SLIMERS project. With a strong protocol and full-support our farmers and agronomists are managing to monitor 100 slug traps each. To read the details of this project and find out exactly what our Slug Sleuths are up to, click the button below.
With preparations underway for this project, a vital job for our Slug Scouts is to make sure they are sending in all the grey field slugs that they find! The John Innes Centre are hoping for over 2000 slugs in order for great results to come from the feeding trials this year, so if this sounds like a job you can help with, click the button below to receive your Slug Scout pack today!
This project is led by BOFIN, partnered with CHAP, Agrivation, Harper Adams University, John Innes Centre, FarmScan Ag and Fotenix. It is funded by Defra Farming Innovation Programme, delivered by Innovate UK.
This is a collaborative project to develop cost-effective digital autonomous slug monitoring, forecasting and precision-treatment tools.
SLIMERS aims to address arable farming’s biggest pest issue that causes £43.5M crop damage/annum for wheat and oilseed rape in the UK and for which there is one form of control – ferric phosphate pellets.
The aim is to develop two commercial services from current proof-of-concept: Patch prediction and precision mapping & autonomous slug treatment using nematodes.
Project Plans
BOFIN will develop the Slug Circle as the knowledge cluster around this project of those with special interest, including scientists and members of the public who have opted in, share experiences and knowledge and help shape the project. The aim is to achieve a membership of at least 300.
In addition, BOFIN will recruit Slug Sleuths who will be paid to carry out on-farm trials to ground truth and develop the technologies. These farmer members will also be paid to lead communication and dissemination activity to encourage adoption of the commercial services. Click here to get involved! A webinar was held on 15th August at 8:30am to launch this exciting project – it highlighted the protocol details, explained the project aims further, discussed how you can get involved and encouraged good discussions. If you would like a recording of this webinar, please contact info@bofin.org.uk for the link.
