Waitrose working to encourage sustainable food production
Written by: Konstantinos Tsiolis There are more than 20,000 known bee species worldwide which vary significantly in their size, habits and appearance having adapted according to the plants they like to visit. More than 85% of existing bee species are not social, like honeybees, but solitary. Solitary bee females mate independently, create their own nests […]
Written by Sam Cusworth: Plasticulture; the use of plastics in agriculture, is a worldwide practice and has been ever-expanding since the 1950s. Replacing the traditional materials of straw, manure, paper and crop mulch, plastics have transformed global agriculture into a more productive and efficient system. From boosting crop productivity to maintaining a competitive advantage in […]
Written by: Max Davis. A consciousness identifying the need for sustainable practices within agriculture can be traced back thousands of years. Ancient Romans were aware of the degenerative effects of continuous agricultural production on soil[1]. Today, modern agricultural systems are still linked with dwindling ecosystem services and processes, and declining biodiversity. Contemporary research approaches aim […]
Written by: Miranda Burke. The global food security programme, if you haven’t heard of it, is a UK cross-government programme on food security research. They use interdisciplinary and whole system research to make fundamental impact across the food system for sustainability and food security. The programme and their team run several events throughout the year […]
Written by: Catherine Walsh Purely by accident, the plan for my PhD research has gained some highly exciting yet potentially controversial hypotheses to test. I am attributing this fresh development to a small extent to the ‘work from home’ policy adopted by Lancaster University during the pandemic but mainly to my supervisor, Dr Marj Lundgren […]
Congratulations to one of our WCTP students, Keira Dymond, on the publication of an article entitled ‘The role of insect pollinators in avocado production: A global review’ in The Journal of Applied Entomology. Dymond, K., Celis‐Diez, J.L., Potts, S.G., Howlett, B.G., Willcox, B.K. & Garratt, M.P.D. 2021. The role of insect pollinators in avocado production: […]
Written by: Alex Bleasdale If there is one thing I have learned in the last year, it’s that working from home is not ideal for plant research. Living at home, close to my university had its benefits, but the climate at Lancaster and the wet and windy weather in my back garden is not the […]
Written by: Helena Ripley. My PhD research is focussed on the use of cover crops to control soil erosion in hillside orchards in Spain. I am currently working on my third data chapter: a mesocosm trial to assess the effectiveness of different species and mixes to reduce soil loss under overland water flow. This blog […]
Written by: Hannah McGrath Whether it’s recent Space X launches or the Perseverance Rover landing on Mars, there seems to be a lot going on above our heads. If anyone reading this follows me on Twitter, you’ll potentially note that I occasionally get far too excited about space. But sometimes, it can be hard to […]
Written by: Ed Hill-King I am a PhD student with the Waitrose CTP in the first year of my four-year programme and beginning my laboratory research in the Lancaster Environment Centre. My research is focused on exploring novel approaches to detecting internal defects in intact potato tubers. Internal defects in potato tubers pose a unique […]
©2019 LANCASTER UNIVERSITY