Scott Raffle has been appointed to the role of Senior Knowledge Exchange Manager at NIAB EMR.
Widely known within the UK fruit industry for his previous work at ADAS, and more recently his work disseminating AHDB-funded fruit research, Scott is taking on a newly created role to improve the information flow of research results from NIAB EMR and to raise its profile within the industry.
Malling™ Fruits, the marketing brand for fruit varieties bred at NIAB EMR in Kent, saw record sales of its world-leading fruit varieties in 2021, with over 94 million plants sold.
Sales of strawberry plants headed the tally with the industry-leading June-bearer Malling™ Centenary reaching over 68 million plants alone. Raspberry variety Malling™ Bella® saw sales grow by over 50% on the previous year’s plantings.
Effective immediately, Gary is providing agronomy advice and technical services to farmers across the eastern region, working closely with NIAB’s Head of Membership Technical Services Andrew Watson and agronomist Stephen Keach on-farm in Norfolk and Suffolk. Will is based in the south-west, joining the regional agronomy team of Poppy dePass, Syed Shah and Steve Cook who cover the south and west of England.
Dr Kanyuka will manage NIAB’s strategic and applied research on the biology, detection, surveillance, epidemiology and management of diseases and pests of field crops. His role will include building on established programmes, and creating new opportunities, with a wide range of NIAB’s academic and commercial partners and customers.
The three initiatives are funded by the UK Government through the UK Community Renewal Fund and will support sustainable food production and promote healthy, prosperous communities.
Gravesham, Medway, Thanet, Swale, and Tonbridge and Malling are all set to directly benefit from the three pioneering programmes.
The simple guides focus on the key practical points farmers can do to improve soil health on-farm and have been developed by bringing together the UK’s top academics and practitioners.
There are six guides available, covering different farming systems:
An industry-wide consortium, led by producer organisation G’s Growers, has won a UKRI-BBSRC collaborative training partnership award (CTP) to provide a £3.6 million postgraduate training programme in sustainable agricultural innovation.
The programme has been co-developed with NIAB as part of its alliance with the University of Cambridge, the Crop Science Centre, the James Hutton Institute and leading UK universities.
Crop science organisation NIAB has welcomed today’s announcement that the Government is set to free up research and improve the rules surrounding gene edited crops, marking an important step towards more proportionate and enabling regulation of these technologies and giving a boost to prospects for UK plant science.
Research results from projects looking at pest and disease control, to future strawberry varieties, will be shared at an online webinar on Tuesday 16th November 2021.
The event will feature a wide range of topics, starting with recent research into new approaches to spotted wing drosophila (SWD) control, including reducing over-wintering populations and egg-laying deterrents.
The Soft Fruit Technical Day has been taken on by NIAB EMR with the support of the East Malling Trust following the winding-down of AHDB Horticulture activities.
The team at NIAB EMR welcomed local MP Tom Tugendhat and Cllr Matt Boughton, Leader of Tonbridge & Malling Borough Council, for a behind the scenes look at progress on construction of new modern research glasshouses and plant growth facilities using the latest environmental technologies.
