Society and communities
Helping elderflower production blossom
Research at the University of Nottingham is finding ways of sustainably growing commercial elderflower in the UK.
In the UK, much of our elderflower raw material is being sourced from the wild and other regions. This is because of the huge knowledge gap among UK farmers when it comes to growing elder commercially. Alice Jones (Senior Food Innovation Advisor) is conducting a trial that has the potential to secure the UK’s future elderflower supply chain.
The challenge
The University of Nottingham Food Innovation Centre is seeing an increase in enquiries from industry on the use of elderflowers as an ingredient and growing it as a crop. The lack of knowledge on how to grow elder commercially has also meant it’s lack of adoption. Farmers who have tried to grow elder commercially struggle with establishment and management of the trees to maintain yields and longevity.
The benefits of elderflowers
Elder is an UK native perennial tree crop with a long productive lifespan, meaning carbon release from tillage is minimal and the carbon is stored long term in soil and roots. Planting more elders are beneficial to the environment and restoring native plants.
However, elders and other tree species have a low establishment rate when saplings/cuttings are planted into the local environment. Being able to test methods for increased tolerance to stress and better establishment will make a significant contribution towards meeting the UK’s goal of 16.5% tree cover by 2050 under the Nature for Climate Fund tree programme.
"It is always exciting to be exploring novel research and being able to implement your research directly with the growers"
Novel research
At the farm on the university’s Sutton Bonington Campus, researchers have been growing elder for the past four years. The European elder trial is understood to be the first UK scientific trial of Sambucus nigra selections.
By harvesting elderflowers and gathering knowledge on cultivation practices, the trial will support commercial production for the UK food and drink industry. In 2024 183kg of elderflower has been harvested from our research plot, with yields continuing to rise as the plot matures. The plot should provide data to calculate typical yield that can be expected from planting elder trees, which aids planting decisions for businesses and can be used in calculations on return in investment.
"The University of Nottingham’s School of Biosciences allows me to access a wealth of expertise in the form of academic partners from many different scientific disciplines"
Alice Jones is conducting the research in partnership with Dr Alison Tidy, a plant scientist in the School of Biosciences. Dr Tidy is leading a project, funded by the Forestry Commission’s Tree Production Innovation Fund, looking into drought tolerance of various selections of S. nigra, and testing if stress priming techniques in early stages of propagation can help build resilience for better establishment.
The project is looking at photosynthesis, growth rates and establishment under stress to discover new methods for increasing establishment in elder, which may be transferable into other tree species.
The team is also studying how selective pruning influences flower yield in the longer term, and we are characterising the different commercially available selections of Sambucus nigra in terms of architecture and habit, allowing specific traits to be matched to specific growing scenarios, systems and sites.
Measuring flower weights, counts and flower size are all components influencing yield and pick efficiency across the named selections. Understanding how selections behave compared to wild types and the influence of specific management practices, such as pruning, is crucial to designing a sustainable and scalable model for production. This has also been achieved with the support and input from several University of Nottingham research students and Interns over the years, which in turn provides an opportunity to contribute to students’ education whilst advancing the research.
The current research follows on from Alice’s previous Nuffield report, which concluded that farming systems most conducive for success of elders are likely to include agroforestry and low input systems. The outcome of both her Nuffield Farming Scholarship Trust project, and the ongoing research, is already feeding into the adoption of elder cultivation by landowners and farmers in low input and environmental tree planting initiatives around the UK.
"It’s incredibly rewarding to be doing this work. Growers are already implementing the findings as soon as they emerge. I am out on farm, almost as much as I am in the research plot. I quite literally get to see the research results blossom"
The success of this research is crucial to both the UK economy, global food systems and supply chains. A move to sourcing more elderflowers each year locally could reduce the need for so many imports, therefore reducing shipping distances and associated environmental impacts, whilst enhancing local habitats.
Alice Jones
Alice Jones is Senior Food Innovation Advisor at the University of Nottingham’s Food Innovation Centre, which shares scientific and technical knowledge with food and drink manufacturers in the UK, to support the development of new products and processes from conception to consumption.
Dr Alison Tidy is a Research Fellow in the School of Biosciences.