Potatoes & Root Crops
Potatoes & Roots: Overview
The short version of what Potatoes & Roots does and why it exists.
Root crops carry the highest working capital and the highest storage risk in UK arable farming. This module runs the full cycle — seed provenance, planting, blight programme, desiccation, harvest, grading and long-term store management — with the store treated as an active, monitored asset rather than a shed the crop goes into.
Detail
Why Potatoes & Roots exists
Root crops carry the highest working capital and the highest storage risk in UK arable farming. This module runs the full cycle — seed provenance, planting, blight programme, desiccation, harvest, grading and long-term store management — with the store treated as an active, monitored asset rather than a shed the crop goes into.
Potato and root crop growers face compressed agronomic options following active substance withdrawals, a blight population that has shifted in aggressiveness, and sugar beet contracts that tie cropping decisions to a single processor. Storage losses are the largest single controllable cost, and they are invisible until the store is opened.
Everything Potatoes & Roots records is written into the same platform data spine as every other module, which is why a single entry can satisfy an operational need, a scheme evidence requirement, an assurance clause and a carbon activity line at once. That is the whole design premise: the work is already being done, and it is the recording of it that is duplicated.
The ground reality
What is actually happening in potatoes & roots in the UK
Potato and root crop growers face compressed agronomic options following active substance withdrawals, a blight population that has shifted in aggressiveness, and sugar beet contracts that tie cropping decisions to a single processor. Storage losses are the largest single controllable cost, and they are invisible until the store is opened.
Figures are as published at the time of writing. Farm policy and payment rates change frequently — verify against the primary source before relying on any number here.
In the field
Potatoes & roots, as it actually looks
Photography from working UK holdings alongside the interface that records it. Every frame below is a commissioned slot: the brief is stated until the photograph is taken.
Potatoes & Roots — a walkthrough
A working pass through potatoes & roots: entering the record once, and watching it appear in the evidence pack, the calendar and the scheme application without being typed again.
- 0:00 What the module is for
- 0:48 Entering the record
- 2:05 Where it appears next
- 3:20 The evidence pack
Photography slots state their own brief until the shot is commissioned, so the layout never shifts when real images arrive.
In practice
Six things Potatoes & Roots changes on day one
None of these requires a new process. They all come from recording the work you already do, once, in a form the rest of the platform can use.
Seed provenance, certification grade and
Seed provenance, certification grade and physiological age tracking.
Planting record with seed rate
Planting record with seed rate, spacing, bed system and depth.
Blight risk modelling with Hutton
Blight risk modelling with Hutton criteria alerting and spray interval management.
Desiccation planning under current authorisation
Desiccation planning under current authorisation constraints.
Harvest scheduling with soil condition
Harvest scheduling with soil condition and bruising risk assessment.
Grading and out-grade analysis by
Grading and out-grade analysis by size, defect and specification.
End to end
How Potatoes & Roots runs, start to finish
The module is modelled as a state machine, so at any point the business knows exactly which stage every record is at and what has to happen next.
-
1
Select seed and verify certification
This is where the record starts, and getting it right here removes work at every later stage.
-
2
Plan rotation against soil-borne disease risk
The platform prompts only for what this stage genuinely needs, and carries everything forward.
-
3
Plant and record
Conflicts with scheme rules, regulatory windows and existing commitments are flagged here rather than discovered later.
-
4
Run the blight and nutrition programme
Capture works offline, so this stage is completed in the field rather than remembered afterwards.
-
5
Desiccate and manage skin set
Everything recorded at this point becomes evidence automatically, in every format that will later ask for it.
-
6
Harvest with bruising risk managed
This is the stage most businesses currently do twice, once for the operation and once for the paperwork.
-
7
Grade, load stores and monitor continuously
Results feed the whole-farm view, so the effect of this stage is visible against the rest of the business.
-
8
Market, despatch and reconcile store losses
The cycle closes here, and what is learned is carried into next season's plan rather than lost.
How we handle evidence
Where these figures come from
Agrivencia grades every figure it publishes. Primary legislation, official statistics and audit reports are treated as authoritative. Levy body and professional body data is treated as reliable. Commercial trackers and trade press are treated as indicative and labelled as such. Where sources conflict, the conflict is shown rather than resolved silently.
- Authoritative Legislation, statutory instruments, official scheme rules, national audit and public accounts reporting, departmental annual reports and accredited official statistics.
- Reliable Parliamentary committee evidence, peer-reviewed research, independent economic institutes and levy body analysis.
- Supporting Professional bodies, land agents, certification schemes and industry associations.
- Indicative Commercial market trackers and trade press, used for corroboration only and always labelled.
Payment rates, caps and windows in UK farm support change frequently and sometimes without notice. Nothing on this platform is a substitute for the current published scheme rules or for professional advice.
Free tool
Run the numbers for your own holding
Enter your figures and get an answer you can act on, with the method shown so you can check it. Save the result to your account or take it away as a PDF.