The LSA Fellows and Alumni Event held at Warwick University was a fantastic opportunity for current and former fellows to meet each other, discuss careers and experiences in horticulture and practice networking – a key professional development opportunity that the LSA funding allows. We started off with introductions from Libby Rowland then dived straight into interesting chats from Rob Watson, Ed Murphy and Lauren Hibbert on their workplaces, roles in horticulture and progression in the industry.
Following this, a Q&A session exploring details of the topics presented by the speakers. This included learnings of Spanish and South African agriculture, spring onion production in UK vs Senegal and research projects in hydroponics. To end the morning session, we heard from Kym Smith, sharing her inspiring travels around New Zealand where she expanded her knowledge of field veg production systems around the world.
After a break, we heard from Henil Vashi and Rebecca Hoyle, who provided the group with even more evidence that there is such a range of roles within horticulture, discussing both production in India and the challenges faced in ornamental production.
Finally, we wrapped up the morning session with our keynote speaker, Rosemary Collier, who gave us a whistle stop tour on research and development at Warwick University. In the afternoon session, we were lucky enough to explore the crop research facilities with Rosemary and looked at many impressive projects including the Gene bank work, glasshouse research and variety trials. Overall, a very technically informative and valuable networking experience to celebrate our dynamic industry of like-minded and enthusiastic professionals.
Alice Bourne, 2024 Fellow
LSA CT Fellowship Scheme 