News article

Two leading UK crop research institutes are joining forces to create a major new centre for applied crop science and innovation.

Four agriculture students from Newcastle University have successfully tested their crop management skills against teams from across the UK to win the 2015 NIAB Agronomy Cup and the title ‘the best student wheat growers in the country’.

A new research centre dedicated to reducing crop and food waste and improving resource use efficiency in the horticultural and fresh produce supply chains has been opened in the Cambridgeshire Fens.

NIAB and UCL (University College London) have been awarded £838,000 by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) to develop innovative methods to help improve UK wheat performance based on the MAGIC plant breeding research programme.

Interactive courses on the science behind remote sensing and an introduction to arable farming have been added to the ARTIS agricultural e-learning platform.

George Eustice MP, Minister of State for Farming, Food and the Marine Environment and George Freeman MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Life Sciences, have officially launched Agrimetrics, the world’s first Big Data Centre of Excellence for the whole food system.

NIAB TAG has appointed Andrew Watson as its Eastern Regional Agronomist.

Andrew will start with NIAB TAG in his new role in early October, providing agronomy information and technical services to members across the eastern region, from The Wash down to Kent, and working closely with fellow regional agronomists Richard Overthrow, Patrick Stephenson and Steve Cook.

Agri-Tech East’s New Soil Health Special Interest Group

Seven new first-choice varieties have been added to the British Society of Plant Breeder’s 2016 Forage Maize Descriptive Lists (DL), alongside five new varieties on the Forage Maize for Anaerobic Digestion DLs.

The varieties Coditank and Emmerson from DLF and Augustus KWS, Rodriguez KWS and Rubiera KWS from KWS have been added to the Forage Maize DLs for favourable and less-favourable sites. Vandiamond from Momont is added to the DL for favourable sites. Perez KWS from KWS is added to the DL for less-favourable sites.