The East of England Agricultural Society’s Scholars Programme, granted Alexander Cumming funding towards his Masters in Crop Sciences. Alexander started his studies in September 2024 and has sent an update through for what he’s already been up to and what the year ahead looks like-
We have had a series of extremely interesting lectures so far, covering topics around the future of sustainable agriculture e.g. from Prof Giles Oldroyd (group leader of the ENSA research / director of the crop science centre) about the context of food security issues, and some of his extremely interesting research focused on engineering the ability of cereal crops to host rhizobia bacteria to fix atmospheric nitrogen for the plant (as legumes do). And from Dr Stephanie Swarbeck (group leader of crop molecular physiology at NIAB) focused on Nitrogen use efficiency in crops, and different ways to maximise nitrogen uptake efficiency in the most sustainable way. We’ve also had other lectures from other members of NIAB and the Cambridge plant science department covering water use efficiency, and AI-assisted phenotyping for crop studies.
We’ve already had a field trip out to Hawk Mill farm to attend a regenerative agriculture and farming systems workshop, organised by Dr Elizabeth Stockade from NIAB (head of farming systems research). It was great to hear from David White, who changed the way he farmed from conventional to regen in 2015, and hear the positivity he had for the future of UK regen farming. He also took us around some of his fields to demonstrate the work he was doing with mixed-species herbal lays and the positive effects they were having on his soil health.
I’m very pleased that I have joined the agroecology lab, based in the zoology department and run by Prof Lynn Dicks. My project (which I am started shortly) is investigating the effects regenerative agriculture practices are having on bio-control (i.e. natural predators) and plant disease dynamics in wheat fields. I’ll be focusing specifically on aphid-vectored BYDV (Barley Yellow Dwarf virus). I believe I’m heading out to do my first but of fieldwork next Thursday, which is very exciting!
