Robotic Farming

To solve the reported food security crisis, there is an increasing awareness that it is to science we must turn. Certainly in UK agriculture, the 'Agri-tech' agenda is very popular and now approaching the main stream.

Indeed, BSc Land Management students this week visited Trevor Griffin at Middle Field Farm, Hinckley who owns an innovative milking parlour for his dairy herd - a robotic dairy! With dairy farming feeling the pinch, this approach enables significant efficiencies to made in production costs - and all can be monitored from the convenience of Trevor's phone! Cows enter the milking sheds where they are scanned by the robots and milked without any human assistance - you can read about his technology here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-14596166

With an additional talk from David Whatoff from SOYL - who develop precision farming technologies - there is evidently room for traditional and non-traditional methods to promote the idiom of 'sustainable intensification' in agriculture.

Plate 1: Robotic milking set up

Anyone for a Game of Drystone Jenga?!

There is an art to many of the forgotten country crafts, and no where is this better illustrated than with constructing dry stone walls. A classic regional feature of much of our beautiful countryside, these take time (and patience!) to build - and as our students may now profess, will take years to master.

Foundation Degree students have been building their own dry stone wall (nicknamed 'The Great Wall of China'!) over the last term and although not finished, progress has been made (Plate 1).

Plate 1: The great wall of China (students from left: Dan, Becka, El, Nat and Sophie)

The quality of stone for building these boundary features is very important, and students have had to grapple with poor quality materials but the end result as I am sure you may agree is taking shape! Students started by digging a foundation trench before sorting through the available stones which were categorised into:

i. Foundation stones (larger stones also known as footings);
ii. Hearting stones (fragments of stones for filling air spaces in your wall, also known as fillings);
iii. Intermediate face stones (the bulk of what you will see);
iv. ‘Through’ stones (long large stones that will go all the way through your wall to aid stability);
v. Coping stones (including thicker ‘bookends’, placed over ‘cover bands’).

Each layer (or course) of the wall was then guided through the use of a batter frame. Stones were placed with their length into the wall – not along it. Larger stones were used at first and pinned in place, and joints were staggered to enhance stability. Although definitely a work in progress, it remains to be seen whether the 'great wall' will last as long as the original!

The Folly of Floods, Fogs and Forests!

With a thick fog cloaking the countryside this morning, it seems nature has gone into hiding after the drama of heavy rain caused localised flooding around the College, cutting us off from civilisation (no bad thing!). In fact so much water fed into the Moulton Brook that HE students had to salvage their revetment hurdle made a few weeks ago - it seems the power of water can never be under-estimated!

Luckily the weather held for students yesterday as they headed out to the woods to undertake some practical woodland management activities. To free up the canopy of some venerable oak trees at the site, students halo-thinned around the base and coppiced back some derelict hazel coppice. One of the issues at the site was the complete lack of natural regeneration - all new saplings providing a tasty treat for the free roaming muntjac and roe deer. So alongside protecting coppiced stools with brash, students attempt to thicken up the densities of hazel trees by plashing 3 to 4 year old poles.

Here, poles (A) were bent over and a neat incision of 3" length was cut 1/3 into the underside of the pole (B); this was fastened in a 4" deep trench using a couple of pegs (C) and causes a physiological response in the tree where it will usually send out new roots. This very ancient trick in essence creates a new tree - for nothing.

Let's hope the deer leave it alone for the meantime at least!

A Quality River!

In part two of their river restoration practical today, Foundation Degree students carried out some simple measures to diversify the in-stream ecological conditions to help improve localised water quality in the Moulton Brook. Students started by pruning back willow growth from the old willow revetments (Plate 1).

Plate 1: Students Becka and Eleanor cutting back residual growth of willow from established revetments.

Using waste trimmings, a simple flow deflector was created to help flush sediment down the stream and create a 'run' that would benefit aquatic life (Plate 2).

Plate 2: Completed flow deflector to improve water flow rates in the Brook.

So in effect freshwater habitats can be managed in an imaginative way, just as traditional methods work in terrestrial systems. To finish off the session, Nat', Dan and Sophie carried out a quick 'kick sample' to sample the macro-invertebrate life in this section of the stream. They found some cased caddis-flies, an indicator of moderate to clean water quality.

Next week we are off to the woods, so check back soon!

Brewing up Success in Higher Education!

Higher Education BSc Land Management students accompanied Farm Manager Matthew Hague to visit the main Carlsberg brewery in Northampton yesterday. Their host was Systems Manager Lawrence May, who gave attendees a tour of the working commercial brewery and discussed issues including sustainability, logistics and supply chain management. 

The evolving ties between Moulton College and the Carlsberg Group have also led to the College farm growing the null-lox variety of maltings barley that Carlsberg use for their beer, helping to feed a more local supply chain. All of this builds momentum towards the College’s proposed new Food and Drink Innovation Academy which will create a new curriculum area with evident links to agriculture.

Pictured from left: Matthew Hague, Rosie Robinson, Ollie Hughes, Sarah Bould, Lawrence May, Jerry Elliott.

To learn more about the diverse range of experiences our students have on their Further and Higher Education courses, why not get in touch today?