Move towards responsibly sourced growing media use within UK horticulture
The project, ‘Transition to responsibly sourced growing media use within UK horticulture’, is worth a £1 million over the next five years and has emerged from the previous work of the Defra Sustainable Growing Media Task Force.
Set to commence in January 2015, the project will focus on easing the transition from a dependence on peat to the acceptance and uptake of a broad range of proprietary, responsibly sourced growing media by the horticultural industry.
Led by ADAS, Institute of Food Research (IFR), alongside Industry experts, growing media companies and horticultural production businesses, the project will advocate a move away from iterative trials towards an innovative predictive model which will target desirable blends at least financial cost. To validate the model, large-scale on-site grower demonstration and R&D trials will be utilised for data gathering.
The experimental work and the application of the model will be used to promote the benefits to the industry of developing cost-effective and optimal performing raw material combinations.
Head of Research and Development at HDC, Jon Knight said, “The commencement of this project is urgently needed by the horticulture industry which increasingly requires tried and tested, responsible growing media choices as well as access to information on the most effective and refined blends. This project will enable a robust set of trials, coupled with a structured flow of knowledge between the research community and Industry, which will increase the confidence of commercial growers towards using progressive, innovative refined and of course responsibly sourced growing media.”
Visit www.hdc.org.uk for more information.