Seed specialists KWS support Harper Adams students

Posted 1 March 2014

Two Harper Adams students are benefiting from scholarships sponsored by KWS UK. 

The KWS UK Scholarship provides a financial award of £2,500 plus a work placement with KWS for the sandwich year of the student’s degree programme. Only two KWS scholarships were awarded, to students interested in knowing more about a career in plant breeding. 

Scholar Kieran Hardy, 19, from Wetwang, North Yorkshire, is a first year foundation degree agriculture student. 

He said: “The placement is going to be brilliant, with such variety that the year should be great. The placement was the reason I applied for the scholarship, but the funding is a welcome bonus which will help me with accommodation for the year.

“I would like to pursue a career in agronomy or crop breeding in the near future, whilst looking for ways to expand and perhaps diversify the home farm, mainly in terms of livestock, which I look to take over when my Dad retires,” added Kieran. 

Rory Galloway, 22, from Mears Ashby, Northamptonshire, has been a KWS UK scholar for two years. Rory, a former Wellingborough School pupil, is a final year BSc (Honours) Agriculture with Crop Management student at Harper Adams.

He said: “I am very honoured to be awarded the KWS UK Scholarship and it has assisted me greatly in my second and fourth year of study at HAU. I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone at KWS UK for a thoroughly enjoyable placement year. 

“I learned a lot during my 15 months with the team, working mainly in the breeding department, learning how KWS conduct their plant breeding programme, from initial crossing, to producing a new variety ready for recommended list trials and eventually to be grown by farmers.”