With tight restrictions on government funding of research, many horticultural colleges are finding partnerships with private companies are leading to practical research projects with a direct bearing on industry.

One such establishment is Otley College, in Suffolk, which has been trialling both edible and ornamental crops in partnership with local organisations.

For the Norwich-based Institute of Food Research (IFR), the college grew carrots and broccoli under different regimes, while Ipswich-based seed and plant supplier Thompson & Morgan (T&M) sponsored the growing and construction of a display of bedding plants grown on towers, shown at the Suffolk Show earlier this year.

College head of horticulture Steve Coghill says: "It has been fun and constructive, and rewarding for the students, who get to be involved with research and development. For staff too, it has brought spin-offs, such as having access to IFR's soil-analysis facilities, which has enabled us to determine the nutrient status of different areas of the college grounds. Everyone wins."

The college has worked with T&M for three years, while the IFR tie-in is more recent. "We have a food-technology section where students look at how food reacts to different treatments after it has been harvested," Coghill says. More work of that sort is dependent on securing further funding, he adds.

"I would like to think that other land-based colleges are as engaged as we are. It's the way we have to be - a hub for both the students and the industry."

Writtle College has also benefited from recent research projects backed by the private sector and the Government. Head of the school of horticulture Martin Stimson explains: "The Government is trying to get universities and colleges to stimulate enterprise, and universities respond to government incentives."

As part of the government-funded Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), Writtle worked with vegetation-control specialist Thurlow Countryside Management (TCM) to develop a test to ascertain the viability of Japanese knotweed rhizomes after herbicide treatment. The £100,000 funding from the Government and TCM paid for a postgraduate researcher and academic supervisor over the two years of the project.

The trial has given rise to a marketable test, on which a patent is already pending. "It has been a mix of lab, desk and glasshouse-based research," says Stimson. "The college gains from supervising the work, and it has stimulated a number of other projects."

Undergraduate students at the college have also benefited from a third-year dis-sertation project on Japanese knotweed eradication, which has looked at wider topics such as the effect of chemical treatments on the wider environment and gaining a greater understanding of the plant's physiology.

"We hope to start another partnership under KTP soon," Stimson adds.

Writtle, which is home to the UK's only foundation degree in professional floristry, has also researched growing sweet peas as a winter crop for the cut-flower trade. "We have looked at how different varieties respond to a range of irrigation, nutrition and climate programmes," says Stimson.

The trials, which will enter a second phase this coming winter, have been in partnership with Essex-based sweet-pea specialist breeder and seed supplier Seedlynx. Managing director John Macefield speaks highly of the partnership.

"We were interested in the potential for winter sweet peas and Writtle was looking at ways of using glasshouses that would otherwise be idle in winter. It has demonstrated that it can be done."

Macefield, whose background is in agriculture, says partnerships between colleges and agricultural companies are long-established. "I believe involving and encouraging colleges is the right thing to do," he says.

"From a commercial point of view, you have to look at the cost-effectiveness. But colleges and universities have wonderful resources, it was a relatively minor pro-ject from the funding point of view, and I already had a good relationship with the staff at Writtle."

For a company such as Seedlynx, the alternatives are to conduct research in-house or use third-party companies. "This wasn't research that we would have prioritised otherwise," Macefield says. "Colleges have their own priorities, and from a commercial point of view we might have gone about it in a different way.

"But Writtle has a wider perspective it can bring to it. It understands professional floristry so was keen to target dates like Mother's Day that are important in that market. It has introduced elements that we wouldn't have considered."

PRIME PEPPER PRODUCTION

Students at Kent's Hadlow College have been trialling potential alternatives to Rockwool as a soil-less growing medium for bell peppers, with the help of fresh produce wholesaler Mack Multiples.

According to a college representative: "The manufacture of Rockwool - the standard substrate - involves high-energy processes, which don't sit well at a time when sustainability features so high on the agenda." Hadlow offers one of the few degree programmes in sustainability in the UK, she adds.

The alternatives were trialled in hydroponic cultures. Fytocell, a polymer of urea and formaldehyde, is produced "cold" and so no energy is involved. Ekofibre is produced from wood fibres harvested from FSC-certified sustainable forests. And coir, or fibrous coconut husk, is an organic by-product of the food industry.

"Another big advantage with all these media is that, at the end of the cropping period, all three are compostable, giving a by-product that is commercially viable," says the college representative.

The college investment in a Priva Integro environmental-control computer and modern machinery gives students the opportunity to work in the type of environment comparable with a commercial setting, she adds.

Data is recorded both manually and electronically, to give students a breadth of research experience. Electronically collected data includes daily maximum and minimum temperatures, light levels, electrical conductivity and pH levels. Students have also recorded the quantity of mains water introduced into the system, volume of feed solution delivered to crops and volume of over-drain, to calculate the consumption per plant.

Mack Multiples has co-operated in the trials with a view to packaging the peppers for the top-range commercial market. Initial meetings with Mack helped the project comply with the Assured Produce Scheme protocol, which led to the initiative achieving accreditation last September. Consultants from the Farm Advisory Services Team also helped with laboratory analysis.

Production is already on a semi-commercial scale. The peppers are available in the Broadview tearoom - a commercial enterprise owned and run by the college - and in its farm shop, as well as local pubs and restaurants.

Commercial manager for Mack's salad and vegetable division Steven Rees says: "It lets students understand the demands of customers like supermarkets - things like audit schedules.

"The goal is to get college produce onto the shelves of local stores, which will be good for customers and good PR for Hadlow. For us, though, the big pay-off is that it will help attract students to work in our technical area, rather than the technical returns."

Mack has recently handed over supervision of the trials to Thanet Earth, where one student who worked on the trials is now employed.

 

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