Ongoing

Hort2thefuture

Matthew Gorton

Deputy Director

Matthew Gorton

Deputy Director

Overview

Hort2thefuture is a four-year, innovation action, funded by the European Union and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI).

It will create and foster the commercial uptake of relatively low-cost, reliable, scalable and environmentally-friendly growing media in horticulture. It will also develop and commercialise novel products and production systems that reduce input use in horticulture, and improve soil structure and mitigate soil compaction in horticulture.

The Newcastle team is leading the behavioural change work package. It consists of staff from Newcastle University Business School (Ana Bogdanovic, Cezara Nicoara, Matthew Gorton, Stuart Barnes) and the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences (Luca Panzone, Jeremy Phillipson, Barbara Tocco) as well as Arijit De from the University of Manchester.

In February 2025, Matthew and Jeremy travelled to Belgrade in Serbia to meet partners of the project which included a visit to Zeleni hit, a key commercial partner innovating in the production and marketing of scalable and environmentally-friendly growing media in horticulture.

GI SMART 2

Progress/outcomes

Hort2thefuture began in June 2024. Key expected outcomes of the project include:

  • A reduced carbon footprint of the horticultural sector and more sustainable production systems, reducing negative impacts on soil health throughout the value chain. This will be achieved through the development of novel horticultural production systems verified in the field,
  • Novel products (e.g., alternative potting and soil-improving materials), production processes and management options for soil management will be developed and commercialised.
  • Sustainable alternatives to peat will become more widely available and used in conventional and organic horticulture. Low-cost, wood fibre-based growing media, using raw materials from within the EU, that have a substantially lower carbon footprint than peat, will be commercialised in partnership with Pindstrup.
  • Policy measures and other incentives will be elaborated to further the uptake of sustainable alternatives to peat.

Next steps

The Newcastle team’s work focuses on:

  • Identifying the barriers to the uptake of more sustainable horticultural practices, and how they may be overcome.
  • Co-creating strategies with professional growers and amateur gardeners for facilitating behavioural change to more sustainable and soil-friendly horticultural production systems, using pilot sites.
  • Identifying strategies for improving the effectiveness of growing media labelling for promoting the selection of more sustainable options by amateur gardeners.
  • Elaborating policy measures and other incentives to further the uptake of sustainable alternatives to peat.
GI Smart trip 1

Selected project deliverables

 

  • Assessment tools for quantifying the economic, social, environmental impacts of different horticultural production systems, as well as life-cycle analysis.
  • Digital decision support tools for growers and growing media manufacturers for the selection of peat alternatives and fertigation recommendations for greenhouse crops.
  • Low-cost, easy to use, scalable growing media in horticulture, based on wood fibre blends, that have substantially lower carbon and environmental footprints than peat.
  • Designer-activated carbons available together with a model to predict activated carbons with specific functionalities for particular crops.
  • Commercial development of locally-adapted organic fertilisers based on waste streams such as digestate from biogas production, manure fractions and other organic waste sources.

 

  • Commercialised biological and mechanical solutions for preventing/reducing compacted soils in horticulture production systems as well as novel organic, microbial, and chemical products that improve soil structure and carbon sequestration in horticulture.
  • Develop a technological solution that improves the oxygen availability in compacted soils using nanobubble and microbubble irrigation.
  • Improved labelling of peat free, more sustainable growing media.
  • Policy measures and other incentives elaborated to further the uptake of sustainable alternatives to peat: via a policy paper and summit jointly organised with Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO).

Partners

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