
- This event has passed.
Pollinator: Ruminating on the Role of Digestate in Managing Healthy Soils
Thursday 12th September 2019 @ 2:00 pm - 6:30 pm

Pollinator: Ruminating on the Role of Digestate in Managing Healthy Soils
Investment in digestors across the UK has brought benefits of managing waste, generating energy on-farm, and generating a home-grown fertiliser and soil conditioner. Yet rigorous, quantitative analysis of the benefits to soils from digestate application are lacking. Here we discuss the outputs of a 2-year Innovative Farmers project designed to investigate the impact of digestate application to soils, and the role of cover crops in improving efficacy of digestate by helping retain nutrients, maintain soil organic matter and help maximise effective nutrient application within NVZ rules. We’ll also be thinking more widely about different soil amendments and the perpetually tricky issue of “measuring soils health.”
This event will report the results of a “Field Lab” project funded through the Innovative Farmers programme (supported via the Soil Association) and will be the opportunity to hear from participating farmers as well as some of the research findings resulting from the project.
Programme
14.30 Arrival, coffee and networking
15.00 Welcome and Introduction
15.10 The Potential for Digestate
Ruben Sakrabani, Cranfield University
15.30 Setting the Scene for the Innovative Farmers project
Laura Bouvet, Agri-Tech East
15.45 The Role of Cover Crops
Iain Wilkinson, CEO, Cotswold Seeds (or Sam Lane)
16.10 Break
16.45 The Farmers’ Perspective
Andrew Blenkiron (Head of Farming, Euston Estate)
James Beamish (Head of Farming, Holkham Estate)
Nick Sheppard (Upton Suffolk Farms)
17.15 Reducing Nitrogen Losses from Digestate
Stephen Temple, JF Temple & Sons Ltd
17.25 Project Results
Lydia Smith, Head of Innovation Farm, NIAB
18.00 Meanwhile in another Field Lab project…….
Dominic Amos Organic Research Centre, Elm Farm
18.20 Closing comments
18.30 Networking
19.00 Close and depart
Cost:
This event is FREE for members of Agri-Tech East, and £35 for non-members. Please note the fee is non-refundable for cancellation within 5 working days of the event. Agri-Tech East members can use the dicount code AgriMember to book their place. Check if your company is a member.
To find out more about becoming a member of Agri-Tech East, please click here.
There are 3 BASIS points available for this event.
Pollinators are Agri-Tech East’s bi-monthly network meetings. We want to ignite discussions between participants rather than lecture, with people from all sectors and disciplines welcome—whether you’re a grower, a researcher, or entrepreneur, come along and join in!
Mailing List:
If you would like to hear about what Agri-Tech East is up to, or about other events we run for both members/non-members of Agri-Tech East please sign up using this link. We send about 2 emails a month, and you can unsubscribe at any time.
Villa Road
Impington
Cambridgeshire CB24 9NZ
United Kingdom
Event fees £35 | £35.00 |