Regenerative agriculture meeting

In January, I (Ian) attended a knowledge exchange event held at the Crown Plaza, Sheffield. The event was funded by BBSRC and organised by the amazing Grace Wardell and Jess Dunn, who are in the Harrison and Grey lab's, respectively. 

The event was a real success and it was great to see so much positve engagment between academics and farmers. It gave a nice sense of realism to the research conducted behind university walls. 

From a personal perspective, I was great to see so many farmers already engaging with regenerative farming practices to minimise their environmental footprint. We also learned a lot about the practicalities of their methods and how our research may help improve its efficiency. 

As we work on the environmental cycling of phosphonates, I was really excited by the discussion on the use of glyphosate. Glyphosate has received alot of negative press due to its non-specific toxic effects on wildlife and potential problems with biomagnification. Many farmers say that without glyphosate, much of the regenerative practices become unstuck. I am very interested in looking at the microbial breakdown of both glyphosate and it's equally toxic breakdown product, aminomethylphosphonic acid. If we can tailor microbiomes to perform this breakdown process after it's served its purpose, then we can further minimise agriculture's impact.

Alot of focus was on the inclusion of herbal leys and other legume intercropping strategies, which was really exciting to hear. Ellie Harrison gave an amazing talk about microbial inoculants, particularly nitrogen fixing rhizobia. We have several joint projects looking at interactions between phosphorus cycling and rhizobia nitrogen fixation. 

There was also a great evening meal and there was plenty of ooportunities to network and socialise with new faces and old. All in all, a great meeting. Thanks to Julie Grey and Jonathan Leake for being the leads on securing the funding.