North Wyke is a Department of Rothamsted Research, helping to address some of agriculture’s most pressing challenges, for example mitigating and adapting to climate change, protecting natural resources and sustaining the rural economy in grassland dominated regions such as South West England.
The farm is 355 hectares, typical of the livestock farming which dominates areas of Western Britain. The farm hosts multiple long and short-term research projects and maintains a diversity of land use types to help facilitate future experimental demands, including a range of improved and semi-improved grasslands, herbal leys, arable, silvopastures, as we as 40ha of mature woodland. It hosts the North Wyke Farm Platform, a unique national and global research facility that is linked to real-world farming.
The mission of Rothamsted Research, North Wyke is to undertake internationally excellent science that elucidates the interactions between soil, microbes, plants, animals, water and the atmosphere within grassland-dominated landscapes.
We have refocused our research to harness the power of new systems biology approaches. These combine predictive computer modelling, which can make sense of huge amounts of data, with experimentation in the field and in the lab. The result is improved understanding of the complexity of grassland ecosystems and what it means for practical land management food production and environmental goals. We are collaborating with scientists from complementary research centres to ensure that the UK has critical capability in research into sustainable management of agricultural landscapes.
