Agriculture HRP poster competition won by Saskia Johnson

Saskia Johnson, Harper Adams University BSc (Hons) Agriculture student has won the annual agriculture poster competition where she showcased her research on: ‘An investigation into the rooting habits of Little Gem planted at different stages of development using PlantTape and the effects on harvest quality’.

Saskia, 22, from Woodbridge, Suffolk said: “It feels good to work on something that I’m genuinely interested in, and be a proper scientist.

“The poster was about lettuce and it’s rooting habits in a new planting system called PlantTape.

“Creating this poster involved bringing together all of the elements of my project and viewing it as a whole, which included; how the idea to study PlantTape rooting fits in with other research, how it’s going, and what it means practically.

“I originally started the project while I was on placement year with G’s Fresh, where I was involved with their planting systems. I got to test many different planting methods with different sized lettuces and document what happened. This then led onto a full field trial plot.”

One of the judges, Dairy Crest’s new product development manager, Simon Hunt, said: “I like the well thought out methodology and the statistical design. I can see how it would be commercially beneficial to the industry.”