The James Hutton Institute has received a £3 million investment from Scottish Enterprise to advance its new high-throughput phenotyping facility, part of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC) housed within the Institute’s Crop Innovation Centre in Invergowrie.

The new facility will accelerate crop innovation by using sensors and lasers to map plant architecture and health in detail, assessing how genetic makeup interacts with environmental changes. Combined with automation and AI-driven analysis, the platform enables researchers to identify new traits more rapidly, providing plant breeders with a faster route to market for improved varieties across agriculture, horticulture, pharmaceutical, and food sectors.

This latest investment complements the £62 million already provided through the Tay Cities Region Deal (TCRD) by the UK and Scottish Governments, which funded two innovation centres — the APGC and the International Barley Hub (IBH) — in partnership with the University of Dundee Plant Sciences Division.

Designed to recreate current and future climate conditions, the phenotyping system integrates automated plant handling, irrigation, climate control, and advanced imaging to screen large populations and identify those best suited to future growing environments. It will support research into breeding climate-resilient, low-input crops, reinforcing the Institute’s mission to address global challenges in food, non-food, and pharmaceutical production.

The platform forms part of a wider suite of tools combining advanced phenotyping, automation, AI-driven analytics, and high-performance computing. Operating as an open-access resource, it aims to foster national and international collaboration between academia and industry, encouraging cross-sector projects that contribute to a more sustainable future for agriculture.

“This is a very welcome investment from Scottish Enterprise as this equipment is facilitating some of the most pioneering research into crop resilience being carried out anywhere in the world,” said Professor Colin Campbell, Chief Executive of The James Hutton Institute. “In a recent economic impact report from BiGGAR into the Hutton, it was noted that for every £1 of funding received, we deliver £15 in economic value for the UK economy, of which £9 is retained in Scotland. It’s thanks to this type of investment that we continue to make the impact we do, using science to secure a more sustainable future, keeping food costs down, protecting livelihoods and making a positive contribution to our economy.”

Adrian Gillespie, Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, added: “The new phenotyping equipment, supported by Scottish Enterprise, builds on existing facilities at The James Hutton Institute including the International Barley Hub and the Advanced Plant Growth Centre. The cutting-edge facilities in Invergowrie combine innovative technology for the industrial biotechnology and agricultural sectors and will help create hundreds of new jobs, boost productivity and support scale-ups to benefit the Scottish economy. Our support will enable more businesses to use the facilities to translate world class research into commercial ventures with the potential to scale.”

Dr Rob Hancock, Deputy Director of the Advanced Plant Growth Centre, commented: “This new facility accelerates the identification of key traits for crop resilience, yield improvement and stress tolerance, climate change adaptation, sustainable agriculture and precision farming. By leveraging Hutton expertise in genetics, we will enhance industry collaboration to bring the new varieties needed to support agriculture more quickly. Moreover, the facility directly supports new developments in controlled environment agriculture (CEA) and vertical farming.”