The 22,500-acre Elveden Estate, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford, hosted a demo day focused on trials which are shaping its soil and water management strategies.

Despite this week's downpours, the dry spring weather remains a concern for the region's farmers.

The Elveden Estate, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford, hosted an Agri-TechE demo day focused on the farm's soil and water management trials (Image: Chris Hill)

And water is a particularly valuable resource at Elveden, which relies on irrigation to grow high value crops such as potatoes, carrots and onions – with around 6pc of the UK’s onions grown on the estate's 10,000 acres of farmland.

Last year, the estate completed a £3m project to build its third reservoir, boosting storage for critical irrigation supplies during increasingly hot and dry summers.

And this year some of that water is being applied to onions through a new drip irrigation system, using a network of valves, tubing and low-pressure pipes to slowly release water into the soil.

A drip irrigation system on an onion field at the Elveden Estate, on the Norfolk-Suffolk border near Thetford (Image: Chris Hill)

Andrew Howseman of Drip UK said the system was highly efficient in delivering water directly to plant roots, reducing........

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