this is bbc news. we will have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. this week, we're getting in tune with nature. yeah, we're having a high—tech chat with our plants. i love that you're breaking it down to talking to plants because a lot of people do that in their own greenhouses. but what do you do when your grapes aren't happy? paul's looking at how vineyards are adapting to climate change. right, so shall we...? shall we give it a taste? of course, yes. and forget fences. this is the new way to keep your cows from moo—ving too far.

in a month's time, the traditional european harvest will be complete. currently, farmers are working around the clock to cut corn, with strawberries and raspberries already picked in june and july. farming has always embraced the latest technology, from the plough through to tractors and beyond. but it is under pressure. fuel and fertiliser costs are rising, labour is hard to get, and still consumers and supermarkets are demanding cheaper and cheaper prices. added to that, climate change is affecting how our crops grow, when they need to be harvested and how much water there is available for them. the global population is expected to hit ten billion by 2050. that's a lot more mouths to feed. it's a perfect storm, and things are going to have to change. we've seen in the past how verticalfarming could play an important role in that, but it is still a pretty new technology.

but laura goodwin has been to see a new piece of tech that could take vertical farming to the next level. a warm, sunny day like today is a gift for farmers, who very much rely on the climate and their own expertise to ensure their plants are healthy and happy. but what if they could control the climate? and what if they found a way that the plants could tell the farmer what they needed? one agritech company, gardin, thinks they've worked out how to do exactly this. well, what do we have here? one of our partner vertical farm facilities where we've installed our sensors. wow, look at all this! and it smells incredible. chillies on this side. got chillies here. we have some flowers down here — edible flowers. some strawberries. there's 25 trays high here, growing a number of species. and all of this is being monitored by the gardin sensors here, which are mounted on the mobile platform.

so our sensors are able to monitor this whole environment — they move around. and what they're looking at is particular leaves. we're able to use optoelectronics, which is smart physics, to understand how the leaf is performing. it works by combining the images it collects with machine learning, which has been trained on lots of pictures of plants at various stages of growth. this allows the system to monitor how well the process of photosynthesis is working in each plant, and this tells them how efficiently they're growing. so we're really talking to the plants, and they're telling us how happy they are. and we're able to then feed that back to growers and able to tell them which crops are performing the best. and then we can understand why that might be with the environment around it. i love that you're breaking it down to talking to plants because a lot of people do that in their own greenhouses. this is on a much higher tech level. and explain, why is it

so important, particularly in a verticalfarm, that you can do that? the beauty of vertical farming is really that you have this really fine—grain control. and what we want to be able to do with our sensor is to say this is the current status of your plant and what you should do is slightly change the variables in the environment to make that plant perform better, which will result in more food. but it's notjust more food. gardin says they're actually trying to make food better, full stop. we've all go and bought very red, round tomatoes from the supermarkets, brought them back home and been thoroughly disappointed when we've had them. the problem today is that the way that we measure the value of food, the quality of food is wrong because, you know, when we look at two tomatoes today, the way that people in industry decide which one's a better tomato is by looking at how red it is or how round it is. and absolutely nothing about... did it come from a healthy plant or not? by measuring the health of the plant, you naturally end up with a better tomato, you know,

rather than by completing the full food production process and, right in the end, just looking at the cosmetics. but working out how to make the best tasting food means a lot of experimenting. so one of the big projects we've been working on with igs is around optimising basil growth. so we all love basil for that kind of italian pizza flavour. so we're looking at how can you actually control different wavelengths of light to make basil taste even better and have the tastiest basil you've ever had? you can actually look at those characteristics and say these particular signals will look like a basil that will taste and smell really strong. so which one do you think will taste the best, and should we try it? i think this guy is looking pretty good up here. yeah? right, let's give it a go. have you had enough, basil? we've eaten a fair amount of basil, yeah. i'm going to give it a try. it's very flavourful. yeah. this one up here has had a lot of fire red light. and that's caused it to be very leggy, it'll probably be very watery. whereas this one down here, you can see there's a much richer colour.

and that's with a very different lighting recipe. and hopefully you should be able to taste the difference. yeah, we can see the difference. let me see if i can taste it. instantly a lot stronger. mm. a much more powerfulflavour. yeah. and you could tell thatjust by looking at them. yeah, well, hopefully we can tell that through the gardin sensor as well. julian laughs in many ways, though, this tech isn't that new. there's a lot of technology can do something fairly similar, but it takes a lot of that technology and it's not very cost—effective. so the beauty of this particular sensor is that it can really help us drive down the cost of the overall sensor loads, focus in on the important aspects, but in a very controlled, very precise way. and most importantly, a very cost—effective way. bringing together and improving camera technology, integrating machine learning, then applying it to agriculture is certainly an innovative step from gardin, but vertical farming is still in its relative infancy, and it will be interesting to see whether this will provide enough growth

for the company in the near future. laura, there. and aren't vertical farms just amazing? i love them. i love the pink—ness personally. but not everything can be grown inside. these grapes, maybe. but most grapes are grown in vineyards, which are outside. yeah. and the problem is that climate change is starting to affect how those grapes are growing. so paul carter has been to bordeaux to meet one company that's trying to help vineyards to keep cool. wine. we've been consuming and producing it for hundreds of years. throughout that time, the methods have remained almost unchanged, despite evolving into an industry worth over $300 billion worldwide. but now, tradition and technology are merging to help growers combat new challenges. two vineyards in france's world—famous winemaking region of bordeaux are among those at the

forefront of change. chateau haut—bailly and chateau pape de clement have both been making wine in this area since at least the 1500s and are two different growers united in bringing technology into viticulture, with the aim of tackling a very modern problem — climate change. with climate change, what we see is we have hotter climates, we'll have more extreme rain patterns, so it means drought and then a lot of rain and then drought, a lot of rain, etc, which means that during these periods where we have hot weather and water, the disease pressure is very, very high. it's at levels we've never seen before. we are trying to adapt our vineyard to the climate change first, so the material — rootstock, grape variety, leafage — everything, we try to adjust to get the best of it. but we also get to work with new technologies.

one such technology both vineyards have been adopting is from a company called deep planet, an agritech start—up using al to inform decision making. in winemaking. we use satellite imagery and artificial intelligence, or machine learning, to help wine growers make better decisions. so, we help them predict yield, understand when is the right time to harvest. holistically, we are providing a full stack solution for the wine industry, to help them reduce costs as well as to improve the quality of wine. so obviously there's a lot of data that's coming into this system from a variety of different sources. how do we get that? how does the system make that into something that's perhaps more understandable to someone like me that's looking at this? yeah, so we incorporate different technologies. in addition to satellite imagery, we also use ai and machine learning. effectively, we're using a whole pool of data that we have from existing growers. we have more than 40,000 hectares under our platform, and we use a combination of our existing pool of data

as well as a new pool of data. it uses machine learning processes to analyse the crops and identify areas that might require attention. we can better understand what's happening for sure. we have a lot of... ..a big database about all the climate data since i've been working here, since 20 years. we have all this data, we have all the data about the yields, about the concentration in sugar of all the grapes. artificial intelligence here will help us to predict and to forecast what will happen for the next vintage. but why does this matter? and what sort of impact can changing weather have on the quality of the end product? right. shall we... shall we give it a taste? of course! so, this 2011, this is slightly different from the 2015 and 2016 in terms of the conditions.

i chose �*11 because, for me, at the moment, it's the vintage that looks like more what we are living now. 2022 started very early. we had the early de—budding, some frost in april, but then it was the amazing, exceptional warm in may, and it and the drought we have now injuly are exceptional. and in my memory, i've been working here since 20 years, it looks like what happened at the beginning of the season of �*11. this is really another stage. it's a very mature wine. the tannins are getting softer and it's fresh. but with the evolution of the...aroma of the ageing in the bottle. that's my favourite. of course, it's... to drink now, this is the best. but in terms of potential, �*16 is much higher. winemaking as an industry has developed over centuries, so while technology can be an aid, some growers say it can never be a replacement for knowledge and expertise.

we are working...on other ways to grow this crop, which is already very different from ten years ago or 15 years ago, to build more resilience into the system and make our vineyards less prone to drought, stress, to diseases, etc, etc. and then there is the technology side, which is going to help us to make the right decision, because, so far, we've learned by doing mistakes over centuries or decades. now, we have to make the right decision now, by being able to adapt — within the same plot — how we grow the crop to make it able to produce great quality grapes. standing out here amongst the vines, it's clear to see the scale of the wine production industry here in this particular part of france. and i've seen today that climate change is proving a real problem for this industry. the challenge will be whether

the technologies that they're implementing here will be enough to react quick enough to help them adapt as we move into the future. that was paul and this is what has been happening in the world of tech this week. now, whatsapp is allowing people to exit group chats without other people being told about it, except the group admin. it is one of the previously available features being added to control when you see people online. presidentjoe biden assigned a law committing $280 billion to hi—tech manufacturing and scientific research. it comes amid fears the country is losing its tech add to china and will be used to boost domestic edge to china and will be used to boost domestic production of microchips. this increased research in developing funding will ensure the united states leads the world in these industries in the future, from quantum computing,

to artificial intelligence and advanced biotechnology. in a bid to be more inclusive, dating site hinge is including a list of not so frequently asked questions. the guide, being put together in consultation with the lgbtqia+ community, addresses tough questions. and uno, the card game usually seen on holidays, is moving into the realm of e—sports. they brought together streamers from twitch and youtube for an all—star competition to win a golden card, brilliant. wildfires like this are getting more and more common. extreme drought and climate change create the perfect conditions for fire to rip through a forest. but there are other factors at play here, too. when a forest hasn't had a wildfire for a long time, detritus builds up on the forest floor, branches, bushes, and that's described by experts as fuel.

it can supercharge a wildfire. angela works for cal fire and is in charge of 27,000 acres of trees near santa cruz. her team is removing the fuel on the forest floor. every year, much of this material is burnt, sending carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. really, the only options that we have at this point is to either chip it or burn it in piles or broadcast burn it. ideally, there would be a better use, yeah. that's the problem san francisco start—up charm industrial is trying to solve — by turning unwanted biomass into oil and pumping it back into the ground. the idea is actually pretty simple. unwanted biomass, which could be from a forest or a farmer's field, is pulverised into dust and then pellets. it's then heated up to 500 degrees without oxygen. the process turns the biomass into this — oil, a process we sadly

weren't allowed to film. kelly kinetic is the company's co—founder. one of the breakthroughs we had as a company was that it's really valuable for its carbon content and not necessarily its, like, energy content. so if we inject this underground, similar to the way that you inject c02 or other liquids, then that is removing carbon from the biosphere. so how do you pump this thousands of feet underground? so actually this is similar to just reverse oil drilling. so you can take the same sort of infrastructure of pumps and filters and, uh... injection pieces to pump it back underground and just refill similar wells. charm industrial hopes to make money by convincing companies to pay them in the form of carbon credits to sequester the carbon underground. the financial services company stripe has already paid charm to offset more than 400 tonnes of carbon. microsoft is also working with the company. but the big problem here is cost and scale. using this process

to offset carbon emissions, a return flight from london to new york, for example, currently costs nearly $11,000. sean kinetic is charm's chief scientist. this process is expensive at $600 per tonne. that's not economical, is it? absolutely not. i think that the... the price point of carbon removal is difficult for permanent removals. sean argues that although other types of carbon offsetting are much cheaper, this method produces permanent carbon removal. when we put it on underground, it will remain underground for 10,000 years, versus a tree that's planted which may extract carbon for 100 years, but then decay. we put charm's idea to two climate change experts. first, mike mcguirk from the colorado school of mines. i think this concept is conceptually very powerful. itjust comes down to efficiency and costs, and unfortunately that's not unique to them whatsoever. when it comes to carbon capture, the questions have always been efficiency

and cost. and then the carbon removal expert, robert hoagland. from what we're seeing and how they're approaching it, they're doing in a very responsible and safe way so that you're taking carbon and you're actually storing it permanently, i would say there's very little doubt about that. it's solid tonnes. the question is more, is this a pathway that we want to see on a very large scale? charm wants to build thousands of these units on farms and forests. they have lofty ambitions. however, angela has heard grand ideas like this before, but she's not convinced. i think sort of the smaller scale portable type of operations would be very useful in the santa cruz mountain. i'm hopeful that something will happen soon. you sound slightly sceptical. yeah, i probably do. for now, all this unwanted biomass will either rot or be burnt. perhaps one day, though,

if charm industrial succeeds in its ambition, it will end up deep underground. meanwhile, we're back on the farm, along with bear, clover, willow, and the big donkey's called hazel. hazel�*s a horse. technicality. but let me tell you, the piece of farming technology that lara is most happy exists right now is... the fence! yeah, keeping them away from us. but one farmer in the outer hebrides has ditched fences altogether. nick sheridan's been to find out why. there are few places in the british isles as remote as the outer hebrides — a rugged rib of islands off the west coast of scotland. rearing cattle here on harris and lewis comes with its own set of unique challenges. one of those is fencing. it takes time and money to install and maintain. it's vulnerable to the elements, and wildlife can easily become

trapped in it. if a cow really wants to get through or over a fence, they're going to do it. that's the main risk, i think, from my point of view, they're going to escape it, they're going to be... they're going to get hurt, they're going to go out on the road. an innovative new piece of agritech has seemingly solved donald's problems. norwegian company nofence has developed a smartphone app that allows a farmer to draw invisible virtual fences. these can be created and changed in a matter of seconds, from the field, to the couch, or in donald's case, from his bed. the app then communicates with gps—enabled collars worn by donald's highland cows so it knows where they are at all times. i'm in the habit now — every morning i wake up, first thing i do before i check my social media... i was going to say, some people check twitter or facebook, instagram, all the rest.

no, first thing is check the cows. right. check the cows. 0k, they're where they should be. and then i can crack on with the rest of my day, then, i don't have to... i don't have to worry about stuff like that. if the cows approach a virtual fence, an alarm sounds from the collar, and if they keep going, it delivers an electric shock. animal rights charity peta say they are concerned that cows could suffer psychologically if they receive electric shocks from out of nowhere. they're also worried about the collar malfunctioning and giving even minor shocks by accident without the farmer knowing. most of us who have been outside have been zapped by an electric fence. an electric fence hurts. it gives you a good crack. it's not nice, but it's not going to cause you any long—term damage. fencing hasn't really seen a proper update since we had electrical fencing come along in the in the 1930s. fencing is a lot of work and it's not dynamic and it's not part of nature. so virtual fencing will allow us to move livestock in the way nature intended, and it's going to be a key part

of our sustainable farming future. being able to track a cow's movements is one thing, but the app can also alert donald to a lack of movement — for example, if a cow is stuck, sick or is about to calve. at roughly £300 each, the collars aren't cheap but vastly expand the amount of grass available for grazing, eliminating the cost of factory—bought feed. so how long did it take to get them to this level of sort of discipline with it? didn't take very long at all. so when i got there and put the collars on them and just threw an arbitrary line in the middle of a field, and one morning i went out and all the cows are in a line in the middle of the field. it sounds like a horror film. laughs. so, yeah, it was... it took about a week, but then since then, it's worked really well. the user can even set up exclusion zones, which means that donald can let his cows loose on an area which previously would have been a no—go

due to its proximity to dangerous bog land. the technology has not only benefited farmers, but also other local wildlife. some people might kind of wonder, what is the connection between donald's cows and the corn crakes and the birds? why do you want those cows in here? as you can see from the habitat around us, it's very wet. the bog area, for example, down there, you wouldn't want the cattle going near. so donald would just map it on his phone. so then they would remove all the...all the grass and all dead vegetation throughout the wintertime and then come springtime, all the fresh grass will come through. flowers that i haven't seen coming for years in the areas where donald's grazed his cattle and the flowers i haven't seen for a long, long time. to date, nofence says over 35,000 collars are now in action around the world. and apparently the company has even had enquiries

about adapting the tech for more exotic animals, ranging from kangaroos to elephants. that was nick sheridan with the naysayers to fences. 0oh, good line! and that's it from the three of us. i'll leave you to work out who commanded the highest fee today. all right? thanks for watching. we'll get hazel back to her trailer now. she's very demanding. we'll be back next week. bye! hello there. a north—south divide across the country today. northern areas looked largely dry with plenty of sunshine, but again,

across england and wales, closer to a thundery low than we're likely to see these thundery showers developing. again, they could be heavy enough to cause some localised flooding, especially from the midlands southwards. you can see that thundery low to the south, a ridge of high pressure building in across the north. this weather system will arrive across northern and western areas on thursday. so again, for large parts of england and wales, we'll see the clouds bubbling up, thunderstorms breaking out pretty much anywhere, but certainly across the midlands, in towards south, southeast england. further north, widespread sunshine around, light winds too. a very pleasant day, with temperatures reaching around 18 or 19 degrees, england and wales. little bit cooler, still quite humid in the southeast, top temperatures 20—23 degrees. as we move through wednesday night, the showers and thunderstorms continue to rattle on across to east anglia and the southeast. and then eventually, they'll clear away and we start to see some wetter weather and breezier weather pushing into scotland and northern ireland, so temperatures recovering here. a few chilly spots under the clear skies, northern england, 11—15 across the south and east. here's thursday's pressure picture, then. this weather front bringing outbreaks of rain into scotland, northern ireland, perhaps western england and wales through the day.

some heavy bursts mixed in there, quite a lot of cloud, generally. across the east and southeast of england, though, apart from the odd shower around, we should see some good spells of sunshine, so a quieter story here. a little bit warmer with more sunshine in the southeast, up to 25 degrees. around 20 or 21 as well across scotland and northern ireland. into friday, looks like that weather front eventually clears away from the southeast of england. we've got further sunshine and showers, scotland and northern ireland, northwest england, but quite a bit of sunshine, i think, across central, southern and eastern england. and again, quite warm — 25 degrees. around the high teens in the north and the west, these sorts of values closer to the seasonal norm. we hold onto the run of westerly winds as we head into the weekend, this feature bringing an area of wet and windy weather across scotland. as we move through saturday night into sunday, though, we'll look at the next system, which will bring a spell

of wet and windy weather across the whole of the uk during sunday. so for saturday, then, it looks like it's northern areas which will see the showers. drier further south. sunday, though, looks unsettled across the whole of the uk, with outbreaks of heavy rain in places.

welcome to bbc news. i'm david eades. our top stories: president biden signs on the dotted line — the biggest ever investment in green energy passes into law, with more than $300 billion of new spending. this bill is the biggest step forward on climate, ever — ever — and it is going to allow us to boldly take additional steps toward meeting all of my climate goals. country music plays a battle for the future of the us republican party is under way in wyoming, as one of donald trump's most prominent critics tries to fight off a primary challenge. i've never agreed with one thing liz cheney has ever said but i respected how she fought for democracy. she is standing for principal

and she is saying, i don't care if i lose myjob,