If you only read one line of this: the grant that pays for help with your ADOPT application closes a week before the ADOPT application does. The ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant, Round 11 — £2,500 towards someone helping you put the bid together — shuts at 11:00am on Wednesday 30 September 2026. The Full ADOPT Grant, Round 9 it exists to support shuts at 11:00am on Wednesday 7 October.
Ask for the help after the thirtieth and there is nothing left to ask for. It is the kind of thing you only spot if you happen to open both pages on the same afternoon, so here is the whole month in one place.
Dates for the calendar
| Date | What | Who it is really for |
|---|---|---|
| 9 September, midday | Farmer Welfare Grant closes (£1.5m over three years) | Organisations, not farms |
| From 22 September | SFI26 Window 2 expected to open | All eligible farmers and land managers |
| 30 September, 11:00am | ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant R11 closes (£2,500) | Farm businesses planning an ADOPT bid |
| 30 September, 11:00am | Farming Futures Automation and Robotics R2 closes (£20m) | Agri-tech businesses with farm partners |
| 7 October, 11:00am | Full ADOPT Grant R9 closes (£50,000–£200,000) | Farm businesses leading a trial |
The ADOPT pair, in the right order
ADOPT is the one where the farm is genuinely in charge: you run a trial on your own ground, in real conditions, and the farm business leads the project rather than a university. Round 9 takes projects with total costs between £50,000 and £200,000.
The facilitator grant is the smaller, easier one, and it exists because writing a bid of that size is a job in itself — £2,500 towards someone who has done it before. Both closing times are 11:00am, not end of day, which is a detail worth putting in the diary rather than remembering.
We covered the round when it opened: ADOPT Round 9 — the doubled ceiling and the timing catch. This is that catch, now with its date confirmed on the competition page itself.
The £20 million robotics round — read who actually applies
The Farming Futures R&D fund: Automation and Robotics Round 2 is the big number this month, and the one most likely to reach you second-hand and slightly wrong. It is a share of up to £20 million for projects whose total eligible costs sit between £500,000 and £2.5 million — so it is not a grant a farm applies for to buy a robot.
What it does say, and this is the part worth knowing, is that where farmers, growers or foresters request grant funding on a project, a minimum of 50% of that grant amount must go to ones geographically based in England. The scheme is written to keep farms in the consortium rather than in the acknowledgements. If a robotics company approaches you about a trial site before the thirtieth, that rule is why.
Our brief from when it opened: £20 million for farm robots — what Round 2 actually funds.
The one with no deadline — and the one that has now gone
Updated 3 September 2026: Capital Grants 2026 was the scheme with no closing date — it was always going to shut when the money was gone, and on 1 September it did, with the £225 million allocated across about 17,000 applications. That is the opposite problem to a deadline: nothing told anyone it was nearly over. If you applied, the evidence still has to reach the RPA.
SFI26 Window 2 is one to watch rather than diarise. DEFRA's words are that it expects it to open from 22 September, and the GOV.UK scheme page still says only "September 2026". We have all 71 actions and what each one pays if you want to know what is in it before it opens.
Sources
- Innovation Funding Service — Farming Futures R&D fund: Automation and Robotics Round 2 (opened 3 August, closes 11:00am 30 September 2026; £500,000–£2.5m project size; the 50% England rule).
- Innovation Funding Service — Full ADOPT Grant: Round 9 (closes 11:00am 7 October 2026; £50,000–£200,000).
- Innovation Funding Service — ADOPT Facilitator Support Grant: Round 11 (closes 11:00am 30 September 2026; £2,500).
- DEFRA Farming Blog — SFI26 update: Window 1 now closed (29 August 2026) ("we expect Window 2 to open from 22 September").
- GOV.UK Find a grant — Farmer Welfare Grant (closes midday, 9 September 2026).
- DEFRA Farming Blog — Capital Grants 2026 now closed (1 September 2026) (the closure, £225 million, ~17,000 applications).
This is a summary, not advice. Closing times and eligibility are set out in each competition's own documentation — read it in full before applying.