Pyke to chair AGMARDT
Former Foundation of Arable Research (FAR) chief executive Nick Pyke is chair of the AGMARDT Board of Trustees.
“We worked pretty hard to get the programme mix right and feedback to date suggests that the range of agronomy, technology and environmental presentations was spot on,” he said afterwards.
On the day, FAR chairman David Birkett told Rural News he thought there was “a good turnout and good range of speakers”.
He picked out Patrick Stephenson’s presentation, and the fact FAR and the UK’s NIAB TAG are running identical trials, as a highlight.
“We should get some good comparisons of the influences of our management techniques and what the differences are.”
The partnership means to some extent agronomic research can be fast-tracked by getting two sets of data every year, replicating trials in the northern and southern hemispheres.
“It’s a bit like how European plant breeders do seed multiplication here. We can get twice the amount of research information as if we did it just here [in NZ].”
South Canterbury farmer Rutherford Wilson said he believed visiting the Crops event would benefit his business.
“You can make more money in the long-term from coming here for a day than you would from staying at home for the day and getting on with whatever needs doing. If you don’t come to these things, you don’t pick up on the latest information.”
