A new year starts with Writtle College

Every autumn we start a program with Agriculture students at Writtle College where we show them some of our farming methods at different stages of the growing season. In the past we have worked with some of the younger students on the NVQ level courses, this year we are working with the degree stundents where we can go into a lot more depth and explain some of the finner details. 

We kicked off the visit with the normal weed, plant and pest ident. This has always been a bit of fun, it helps break the ice and also gives us a sense of what the knowledge is like. It was quite clear on this visit that we were going to be working with some very knowledgable students.

Jeremy then introduced them to our farming system and as we were basing the visit on crop establishment he talked them through the Controlled Traffic Farming system that we use and how it aids us with our own crop establishment. Our agronomist Steve Baldock and his colleague Caroline Nicholls who spoke about herbicide programs, variable rate seeding and autumn pest control. We then went out into the fields to have a look at some of it in practice.