The Morley Agricultural Foundation would like to invite you to join us at our annual Winter Event and AGM. To be held at Morley Business Centre, Deopham Road, Morley, Norfolk, NR18 9DF on the 2nd February 2023
This year, at our TMAF Winter Talks we have the chance to listen to and question Maro Caccamo (CEO of NIAB), Suzannah Harder (Post Graduate Researcher, UEA) and Georgina Barrett (Applied Crop Scientist, BBRO).
Mario Caccamo, CEO, NIAB: A science-led approach to regenerative farming.
Regenerative farming is used to describe integrated approaches to agriculture with a focus on improving soil health. At NIAB, we have worked on such approaches for more than 15 years, and in my presentation I will highlight some of that research and advice. Our research is designed to support informed decisions for all growers looking at enhancing soil health, whilst raising productivity and promoting ecosystem services such as bio-diversity. NIAB’s role is to provide independent, science-based evidence to help evaluate practices and products. We learn from experiments that are designed robustly, and from both successes and failures. We focused our work on a science- led approach to assess the value of regenerative farming approaches as the only way to ensure we can continue to feed the world whilst protecting the soil health and the environment and for that we should use all the tools at our disposal.
Suzannah Harder, Post Graduate Researcher, UEA: Virus yellow strain variation/future virus resilient/tolerant beet varieties.
I started my PhD in February 2020 having worked as a research assistant at BBRO for 4 years. I became particularly interested in virus yellows so when the opportunity to study for a PhD arose I took it! Now in its final year, my project investigates whether there are differ-ent strains of the yellowing viruses and how that may affect sugar beet varieties bred to combat the disease.
Georgina Barrett, Applied Crop Scientist, BBRO: Assessing carbon dynamics in sugar beet.
Georgina Barratt is an applied crop scientist at BBRO and prior to this undertook her PhD in water use efficiency in sugar beet at the University of Nottingham. She now leads projects on drought tolerance, greenhouse gas emissions and soil health. The project supported by TMAF will utilise two flux towers to measure carbon emissions and uptake by the crop and the impact of different management practices on emis-sions. The project is in its early stages so Georgina will present an overview of how the flux towers work and what the project is looking to achieve as well as how it fits in to BBROs wider soils research.
Join us for a light lunch at 1.15pm ready for the AGM to start at 2pm. After a few minutes of official business we can hand over to the first of our 3 speakers for an informative afternoon.
If you would like to attend please e-mail michaela.canham@tmaf.co.uk (please let us know of any dietary requirement).