The Guardian21 Jun 2026Market
Automatically composed with AI from the cited sources
The £2.6m Defra-funded Slimers project, running from 2023 to August 2026, recruited 28 “slug sleuth” farmers to monitor slug populations, and the resulting prediction maps enabled 16 growers to halve their slug pellet use during autumn/winter 2025–26 trials. Annual slug damage to wheat and oilseed rape costs UK arable farmers an estimated £44m. Scientists also identified three wheat‑genome regions linked to resistance against the grey field slug.