Students take on new Cereals Challenge

Haymarket’s Cereals exhibition introduces a new feature at this year’s event called the Cereals Challenge. The challenge aims to encourage the work of a new generation within agriculture.

The Cereals Challenge has six agricultural colleges taking part. The aim of the challenge is to grow a plot of wheat and manage it all year for agronomy (fungicides, plant growth regulators, nitrogen, herbicides and the like).

The ‘best’ plot will be judged on heads of wheat, the approach the team took to managing the plot and decisions they made.The winning team will receive a cash prize and a trophy.

The challenge will be introduced at the Velcourt stand and is also sponsored by HL Hutchinsons, crop production specialists.

The Cereals Challenge is one of many applications of science at this year’s exhibition. Jon Day, Cereals event director, says “The crop plots have grown a life of their own at Cereals as a means of communicating applied and complex science in field conditions”.

“The crop plots show just what’s happening in commercial and industry-funded R&D programmes both in the lab and in the field, but more importantly how to apply the findings to agronomy in practice,” he added.