From potatoes to whisky barley, oats to flax, The James Hutton Institute’s research highlights the enduring role of Scottish science in sustainable crop development.

In 2025, the Euroseeds Congress takes place in Edinburgh, Scotland. It offers a timely moment to reflect on the country’s long history in plant breeding and its continuing influence on European agriculture. Few organisations illustrate this better than The James Hutton Institute (‘the Hutton’), based in Dundee and Aberdeen, where researchers are shaping the future of crops that matter locally and globally. Whether preserving potato diversity in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, developing barley for the whisky industry, improving oat stability for healthier diets, or reviving flax for sustainable textiles, the Hutton’s work shows how crop research in Scotland links heritage with innovation.

The Hutton in Context

The Hutton is recognised internationally for its research on crops, land and natural resources. Its work ranges from boosting agricultural productivity to managing soils and water sustainably. By bringing together natural and social sciences, it connects genetics and agronomy with economics and policy, ensuring that research findings influence farming and society more broadly.

Rather than working in isolation, the Hutton emphasizes interdisciplinarity, collaboration and independence. This means potato specialists can draw lessons from oat trials, barley researchers test sustainability practices that may apply to other cereals, and flax scientists connect crop performance with fibre quality in textiles. The impact is amplified when different disciplines interact.

The Hutton also plays a role in Scotland’s economic and research infrastructure, hosting two major innovation centres: the Advanced Plant Growth Centre (APGC) and the International Barley Hub (IBH). Both were created with the University of Dundee and supported by the Tay Cities Region Deal, a £62 million investment jointly funded by the UK and Scottish governments. These centres are not only about facilities; they represent a commitment to combining advanced science with practical outcomes for growers and industries.

At its core, much of the Hutton’s work is about preparing crops for a changing climate — developing varieties that use fewer inputs, withstand stresses, and still deliver quality for consumers and processors. To see how this plays out in practice, we can look more closely at four crops — potato, oats, barley and flax — each central to Scottish and global agriculture in its own way.

Students from Websters High School, Kirriemuir visit to the James Hutton Institute in Invergowrie as part of the Dafodill DNA project. Pupils Emily Moore, 16(left) and Derya Ersoy, 16 with
Gaynor McKenzie, Curator, Commonwealth Potato Collection. Photo: Paul Reid

Potatoes: Conserving Diversity for Future Resilience

The UK’s only potato gene bank, the Commonwealth Potato Collection (CPC), is housed at the Hutton in Dundee. It safeguards hundreds of wild and cultivated species that may one day hold the key to breeding new, more resilient potatoes. With climate change altering rainfall, temperatures and pest pressures, this genetic diversity is a priceless resource.

To reduce the risk of losing it, the Hutton made a safety deposit of seeds at the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, the world’s largest secure seed storage facility. As CPC curator Gaynor McKenzie explains, “Managing a gene bank such as the CPC requires maintaining both the genetic integrity and physical viability of the seed under your care. The Gene Bank Standards for Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture set the benchmark for current gene bank best practices and encourage the creation of a safety duplicate for each original sample to be held in a geographically distant location.”

That distant location is Svalbard. McKenzie herself travelled there in 2017 to deliver the first deposit. “Visitors are no longer permitted to enter the vault, so I feel very privileged to have been one of the few people to have been afforded this opportunity,” she recalls. These potato seeds remain the only Scottish contribution to the global vault.

Beyond conservation, the collection is used in breeding programs: wild potatoes adapted to high-altitude cold, semi-desert dryness, or the humidity of cloud forests are being crossed with commercial varieties. In parallel, the Hutton coordinates the Fight Against Blight (FAB) network, which helps UK growers avoid an estimated £4.5 million in annual losses by providing data on late blight strains and guiding fungicide use. Without FAB, blight losses could be at least 7% higher.

Together, the CPC and FAB illustrate how long-term genetic conservation and real-time monitoring complement one another: one safeguards the future, the other protects farmers in the present.

Oats: Nutritional Promise and Agronomic Challenges

If potatoes are about resilience, oats tell a story about nutrition and sustainability. Oats require relatively low inputs, compete well with weeds, and are less disease-prone than many cereals. On top of that, they carry recognised health benefits, particularly from their high β-glucan content, linked to cholesterol reduction and improved blood sugar control.

Demand is rising: In the UK, oat production rose nearly 20% in 2024, driven by both food trends and higher yields. Yet for all their promise, oats remain a somewhat unpredictable crop. Yield and quality often fluctuate from year to year, creating uncertainty for growers and processors.

To address this, the Hutton is part of a three-year European project coordinated by the Innovation Centre for Organic Farming in Denmark. Together with Aarhus University and NordGen, the Nordic Genetic Resource Centre, the project is testing 200 oat varieties and landraces collected over the past century. These are being grown in diverse environments under organic systems to identify which genetic traits lead to greater yield stability and consistent nutritional quality.

As Dr. Joanne Russell, who leads the Hutton’s contribution, explains: “The project brings together experts in plant genetics, agronomy, and mathematics to harness the unique properties of oat, with its low carbon footprint and significant nutritional and health benefits. The key issue for oat producers is the lack of stability in year-to-year supply and quality, largely due to seasonal fluctuations in environmental factors. We will focus on the need to develop robust organic-ready oat cultivars specifically tailored to sustainable organic production and address some of the emerging challenges in food and help secure food production.”

By grounding their research in both genetics and agronomy, Russell and her colleagues hope to give oat growers the reliability they need, while consumers benefit from a healthy and sustainable cereal crop.

Photo: Alan Richardson Pix-AR.co.uk

Barley: Sustaining Scotland’s Signature Crop

Few crops are more closely associated with Scotland than barley. It underpins not only food and feed production but also the whisky industry, which is both economically and culturally significant. The International Barley Hub, hosted at the Hutton, is dedicated to ensuring barley remains resilient under climate change and continues to meet the high standards of brewers and distillers.

The hub brings together breeders, geneticists, maltsters, and distillers, linking molecular research with field trials. By using advanced genomics, high-throughput phenotyping and metabolomics, researchers identify genes associated with stress tolerance and grain quality. Traits like germination vigour, malt extract and fermentability are prioritised so that whisky and beer production can remain consistent even in variable growing conditions.

But the research is not only about the grain itself. Agronomic practices are also being tested to cut emissions, improve nitrogen-use efficiency and protect soils. In this way, the hub supports both farm profitability and Scotland’s net-zero ambitions. A notable contribution has been quantifying how genetic improvements since the mid-1980s have safeguarded whisky sales and related jobs, demonstrating the link between crop science and economic resilience.

Barley research thus illustrates a complete chain: from the gene level, through farming practices, to consumer products and cultural heritage.

Flax: Reviving an Old Scottish Fibre

While potato, oat and barley research focuses on improving staple crops, flax represents something different: a return to a crop that once thrived in Scotland. Historically grown for linen, flax production declined with the rise of cotton and synthetic fibres. Yet the fashion industry’s environmental impact is now driving renewed interest in natural fibres.

The Hutton, together with Soil Association Scotland and industry partners, has been assessing the potential of flax under Scottish conditions. Trials across farms and community sites have tested three varieties — Delta, Tango and Avian — under different cultivation methods. At the Hutton’s Balruddery Farm, researchers examined sowing densities, nitrogen treatments and tillage practices. Results show that factors like undersowing with clover can influence stem length and potentially fibre quality.

Harvesting remains a challenge since Scotland currently lacks specialised equipment for flax. Much of the trial crop has been harvested by hand, with fibre quality tested in collaboration with Fantasy Fibre Mill and Heriot-Watt University. The findings suggest that flax could again become a viable crop for Scotland, though more work is needed to scale production and processing.

This project demonstrates how plant breeding and agronomy can intersect with wider social trends — here, the shift towards sustainable textiles and circular economies.

Connecting Crops and Challenges

Taken together, these four examples highlight the breadth of crop research underway in Scotland. From conserving potato diversity against future threats, to stabilising oats for healthier diets, to sustaining barley for whisky, to testing flax for textiles, the Hutton’s work reflects both global challenges and local opportunities.

The unifying theme is resilience — whether against disease, climate variability, or unsustainable consumption patterns. While each crop poses different challenges, the Hutton’s interdisciplinary approach allows lessons to travel across projects: barley genomics informs oat research; potato conservation parallels flax revival.

As the Euroseeds Congress gathers in Edinburgh in 2025, the work of The James Hutton Institute offers a reminder that the future of crops depends not just on genetics or yields, but on how science connects with society, culture and environment. In Scotland, plant breeding continues to seed innovation for the decades ahead.