Agri-Tech Catalyst – Innovate UK. Industrial Research – Crops: Non-food applications. ‘Yellow Gold’: Innovative systems for sustainable daffodil-derived galanthamine production in the uplands. A collaboration between: Engineering Department, Harper Adams University, Newport, Shropshire. Agroceutical Products Ltd, Powys. Institute of Biological, Environmental and Rural Sciences, Aberystwyth University.
Alzheimer’s disease • Sufferers of Alzheimer’s disease accounts for up to 75% of all cases of dementia. • Since 1998, Galantamine has been an approved treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. • Galantamine can be synthesised, but is difficult to do and is expensive. • Galantamine can be produced relatively cheaply from galanthamine, a similar chemical found naturally occurring in plants, such as daffodils.
Why ‘Yellow Gold’? • Daffodils are grown commercially in the UK and across Europe in lowland areas, but the levels of galanthamine in the plants is minute. • However, previous research that Agroceutical Products Ltd (AP) had been involved with had shown that growing daffodils at altitudes above 305m (1000ft) somehow ‘stressed’ the plants such that the levels of galanthamine increased significantly. • Therefore, growing daffodils in the uplands might offer hill farmers a novel, high value crop that could provide them with a new income stream. • Hence ‘Yellow Gold’!
Introduction – Who are AP? (See http://www.agroceutical.com/) Agroceutical Products (AP) was formed in around 2004 and is at the forefront in the production of sustainable quantities of naturally derived galanthamine. Agroceutical Products' work on the production of galanthamine from daffodils grown in Wales was featured in the BBC's Countryfile program that was broadcast in April 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoGhqYN68i8
Why Harper Adams engineers are involved in this project? • Soon after the Countryfile programme was broadcast, AP approached the engineering department at HAU. They felt they would need the skills of agricultural engineers in the next stage of their daffodil project in the Welsh uplands. • The daffodils shown in the Countryfile video were planted using traditional cultivation methods. • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfikvFEVvG4 • Clearly these methods were likely to be inappropriate in the Welsh uplands, due to potential erosion of the thin, stony soils resulting in possible pollution and eutrophication of watercourses, as well as damaging the ground by using large, heavy machinery.
Project establishment. • Therefore, the ‘new’ project would integrate daffodil growing into permanent upland sheep pasture with the aim of increasing both the production of galanthamine and the economic sustainability of hill farming. • From the initial meeting between AP and HAU, it took 2 years and several meetings and discussions with both AP and AU to finalise the detailed aims and objectives of the project. • An application for funding was submitted to Innovate UK, through the Agri-tech Catalyst project call - Crops: non-food applications. • Funding was awarded to the project partners early in 2015. • The project ‘officially’ started on 1 st March 2015.
Project plans and funding • This is a 56 month project with 8 work packages. • The project value awarded to the partners is:- Agroceutical Products = £670,272 Aberystwyth University = £446,832 HAU Engineer Dept. = £222,687 Project Total = £1,339,791 • HAU engineers were tasked with designing, developing, testing and evaluating appropriate planting and harvesting equipment (WP1). • A planting machine was required by October 2015 to plant the first trial plots, at Pwllpeiran Farm.
Yellow Gold – overall structure and work packages Work package 1 Work package 3 Planting and Herbage yields Harvesting machinery Work package 4 WP’ s 7 & 8 Stock performance Juice extraction & Work package 2 processing and Establishment business development Work package 5 Fertiliser inputs Work package 6 Annual harvests
Project site • We needed to develop a system for planting daffodils under permanent pasture, thereby protecting the pasture and allowing sheep to continue to graze. • Our starting point was to evaluate the ground conditions of the designated trial plots. • The project trial plots are hosted by Aberystwyth University at their Upland Research Centre, Pwllpeiran. • Pwllpeiran Farm is a former MAFF Experimental Husbandry Farm. • The project plots range between 320m and 400m.
The trial plots • HAU assessed: – the soils and slope of the plots. – size and quantities of the bulbs to be planted. – commercially available bulb planters and, in particular, any ‘under turf planters’. – the availability of front disc and winged tine combinations that would be appropriate for use on the HAU planter. – What sort of vehicle would be needed to pull the planter?
Commercially available planters Equipment for amenity planting bulbs under turf are available for hire from bulb suppliers, but to purchase one of these machines would be expensive, especially if designed for the upland conditions we were likely to encounter. (The machine on the left/below is made in the Netherlands and the machine on the right is available in New Zealand).
Vehicle selection Would a utility vehicle or a quad bike be appropriate? Or perhaps a small tractor? What are the farmers most likely to have available? Eventually a 55 kW tractor was chosen to pull both the planter and harvester.
HAU planter design The ultimate aim for the planter was to be one man operation, as far as possible, and initially it would be required to plant size 10/12 bulbs at 4t/ha on the 2015 trial plots. Daffodil bulb sizes.
HAU planter design • HAU purchased a second hand, lowland planter and modified it to suit the arduous conditions we would encounter. • Having stripped unwanted bits from the planter, we purchased a suitable tine and fixed it onto the planter chassis. • The tine was adapted, with wings, to open the turf to allow the bulbs to be deposited under the turf with minimal soil disturbance before bei pressed back in place.
Original planter – before modification
Claydon disc and tine assembly. Winged tine turf opener.
Planter Mk.1 – 2015
2015 plots 2016 plots
Planter Mk1 evaluation. Planter Mk1 was not the ‘finished’ item, but was a reasonable starting point from where we could evaluate the performance of the tine and configuration of the machine in the uplands. Areas needing further attention: • Operator access to the hopper when lifting and loading 25kg bags of bulbs into the hopper. • Addition of another tine for two row planting. • Design of the drop chute that would be flexible enough to withstand the movement of the tine while allowing unrestricted delivery of the bulbs. • The relatively smooth nature of the hopper delivery belt meant that bulbs rolled away from the drop chute when planting down-hill or vice-versa when travelling up-hill.
Planting completed – Harvest next. • In 2015 we successfully planted 6 trial plots, each of approx. 0.9ha. Two adjacent 0.9ha plots were left unplanted, as a control. • We then concentrated on selecting and developing machinery to harvest the above ground biomass. • The harvesting machine to harvest the plots planted in 2015 would have to be ready by the following spring i.e. March 2016. • Ideally the biomass should be harvested with the majority of the plants at the ‘goose neck’ stage i.e. not all in full flower. The harvester would aim to collect above ground biomass and leave around 80mm to 100mm of daffodil ‘stubble’.
Daffodils almost ready for harvest. A few more days development required, but this depends on the weather. Two designs of harvester were evaluated.
Harvesting March 2016 – Design 1 We acquired a leaf harvester base unit from Morrish Engineering, Devon and set about modifying it.
Idea is to harvest 2 rows at once. This initial design incorporated two strimmer blades to cut the two rows of daffodils at the same time. However, in early trials this design proved to be ineffective. So, the strimmer blades were removed and were replaced with an oscillating ‘rape’ knife and a purpose built ‘brush’ reel, to feed the cut material up the elevator. This performed reasonably well in trials at HAU and so was transported to Pwllpeiran in time for the first harvest in March 2016.
Harvesting March 2016 Ground compaction was minimal, but, unfortunately the crop material required man-handling and was too bulky, meaning it needed further processing before galanthamine could be extracted. Design abandoned.
Harvest March 2016 – Design 2 • As an alternative to the baby leaf harvester machine, we purchased a second hand Amazone GH135 Flail Collector and modified it. • This harvests 2 rows at a time. • It has a cut width of around 1.3m. • It holds roughly 1m³ of material. • The material is deposited in water-tight, lidded containers.
This system worked well. The chopped material was more suitable for processing.
Harvest March 2016
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