The 2022 Brian Chambers award

Information about the winners in 2022.

The 2022 award attracted another excellent selection of varied and high quality entries. As has happened occasionally, there was a dead heat between two posters, this time for the tenth and eleventh places. As a result, this year eleven finalists were selected to enter the final and display a poster at the Agronomic Conference.

The judges concluded that the research that justified winning the first prize of £1,000 was by Shona Baker, of University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research investigated the management of multispecies swards with reduced N compared to high N grass monocultures.

Her key finding was that a rotationally grazed  multi-species sward (containing six species) produced more grass over a two year period than did a perennial ryegrass monoculture, whilst receiving half of much nitrogenous fertiliser. A key research need now is to investigate how to best manage such multi-species swards over a longer time period.

A short interview with Shona about her research has been recorded. To see it, click on the small white ‘play’ triangle above.

Of the two 2022 Runners up, Lester Botoman, of Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR), Malawi, sought to establish the quantitative effects of the application of Zn-enriched fertiliser in improving the grain nutritional quality of maize. His research found that the use of such fertiliser does increase the Zn content of the maize grains, and that this was to an extent that would have a substantial effect on the dietary intake of people in the area. This work now needs to be extended to cover more of the soil types that occur in Malawi.

A short interview with Lester about his research has been recorded.

The other Runner up in 2022 was Joe Oddy, of Rothamsted Research, UK. His research looked at how fertiliser application and specific genetic variants combine to impact on the potentially harmful acrylamide forming potential of soft wheat. Adding sulphur fertiliser helps to reduce grain asparagine content (which is the key precursor to acrylamide). This research indicated that a N : S application rate of 10 to 1 (kg/ha) was sufficient to prevent large increases in asparagine.  

A short interview with Joe about his research has been recorded.