Throwback to my blog on the LEAF website...

DIVERSify isn’t just looking into how plant teams can be used and how to optimise the performance of them it is also helping to upskill young researchers through its Young Researcher Mission Programme and online Speak Out Toolkit.

Young Researcher on a Mission

Last summer, I took the leap and spent a week at the Organic Research Centre to be trained in all things related to quadrat sampling! It was a fabulous opportunity for me to get my wellies on and immerse myself in research at a farm and plot scale; a long way away from my day job at LEAF and even further from my university days where I could often be found in a lab coat and googles trying to identify plankton as part my marine biology degree!

On a sunny afternoon in early August I headed to the Organic Research Centre (ORC) to start my Young Researcher Mission which involved getting to grips with quadrat sampling methodology and sample processing. It began trying out sampling on the ORC’s trials at the Sonning research site (part of the University of Reading).

Be Random

From here I learnt some important lessons on how to be a super sampler! The key is making sure you’re random with where samples are taken and if all else fails close your eyes and chuck the quadrat! With this type of sampling it is also good to get the same number of rows in each sample and to try to avoid any edge effects by ensuring you are not too close to the edge of a plot or field.

Next I visited a participatory farmer trialling intercropping as part of the project and took samples of their mono beans, bean and wheat plant team plots which were processed back at the ORC. Here we took five half metre quadrat samples in each of the mono and intercrops where we took pods and ears of the beans and wheat. Processing consisted of separating the beans and wheat, podding, weighing and drying the beans and wheat at ORC. We took multiple weights of the samples to ensure they were completely dried, and a final weight was taken to give us our quadrat yield. This is then used to estimate the ratio of the two crops when the final yield is harvested by the farmer with their combine. Whilst yield is obviously an important factor(!), we discussed how past sampling had found differences in weed abundance between the mono and inter strips.

A Plethora of Podding

Next was a long drive, with great company, to the another participatory farm to take samples of their beans and oilseed rape plant team trials. We collected six samples in each of the mono and intercrop plots, completed just in time before the heavens opened (the joys of an English summer!). Samples were then processed with a LOT of beans needing to be podded and weighed to give us the quadrat yield.

I then went solo to the final participatory farm requiring an estimate of separated yields in their trial. I took ten quartre metre quadrat samples each in the mono and intercrop plots and took one last trip to the ORC to undertake the last of the processing.

All results from the sampling and Young Researcher Mission have now been collated and presented to the participatory farmers and wider Innovative Farmers group, as well as feeding into ongoing DIVERSify activities.

The mission was a great opportunity to improve my sampling skills, meet some amazing farmers and work with some of the fantastic ORC team. My experience will certainly feed into my role at LEAF and our wider European and national projects, as well as give us the opportunity to get more involved in trials at a farm level.

A massive thank you to the Organic Research Centre team especially Charlotte and Katie – I don’t want to pod another bean for a while!