Responsibilities
Stuart is a research agronomist with more than 30 years’ experience in applied crops research, combinable crop trials and field experimentation, knowledge exchange, and providing technical advice to farmers and agronomists. He has broad expertise in combinable crop agronomy and its impacts on crop yield, quality, resource efficiency and profitability, including management of soil and fertiliser nutrients within arable crop rotations; evaluation of new plant protection products; monitoring and control of cereal fungal diseases; alternative crops and farming systems; managing within-field variation and decision support.
Research projects
Centre for High Carbon Capture Cropping (CHCx3)
Duration: April 2023 - March 2027
Partners: multi-partner (research and industry)
Funding: Defra FIP / Innovate UK
Fungicide performance on wheat, barley and oilseed rape
Duration: June 2018 - March 2026
Partners: ADAS, NIAB, SRUC, Harper Adams University, TEAGASC
Funding: AHDB
Review of opportunities for diversifying UK agriculture through investment in underutilised crops
Duration: March 2021 - September 2022
Partners: SRUC
Funding: Defra
Recent publications
Knight, S., Smith, L., Howell, P. et al. (2022) Review of opportunities for diversifying UK agriculture through investment in underutilised crops. Defra Project CH0224.
Morgan, C., Wright, P., Blake, J., Corkley, I., Knight, S., Burnett, F. (2021) Combining agronomy, variety and chemistry to maintain control of Septoria tritici in wheat. AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Project Report No. 634
Joynt, R., Blake, J., Ritchie, F., Knight, S., Burnett, F., Edwards, S., Paveley, N. (2019) Fungicide performance in wheat, barley and oilseed rape (2015–18). AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Project Report No. 628
Fraaije, B., Burnett, F., Paveley, N., Blake, J., Knight, S., Norman, K., Kildea, S., Gosling, P., Lucas, J. (2019) Azole and SDHI fungicide sensitivity monitoring of septoria populations (2011–19) and development of tools to rationalise fungicide programmes to control cereal diseases. AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Project Report No. 619
Sylvester-Bradley, R., Rollett, A., Downing, E., Dudman, S., Slater, M., Morris, N., Knight, S., Withers, P. (2019) Cost-effective phosphorus management on UK arable farms: report on Work-Package 3: Improving the efficiency of fresh P applications. AHDB Cereals & Oilseeds Project Report No. 570