The Brian Chambers award in 2016

Information about the entrants and winners in 2016.

In 2016 the award was again run successfully, attracting a strong and varied selection of entries. The international nature of the competition was underlined by entries from Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Slovenia, South Africa, the USA, United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. It was very pleasing that several of the finalists were able to come to the conference.

The judges found the task of selecting the three winners to be just as challenging as was the case in 2015. Eventually, however they concluded that the research that justified winning the first prize was by Andreas Carstensen, a PhD student at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. His entry described the development of a new hand held sensor to detect phosphorus deficiency in field crops.

A short interview with Andreas about his research has been recorded. To hear this, click on the small white ‘play’ triangle at the top of the new screen that will appear.

There were also two runner up entries, that were awarded £500 each. The first of these was from Lotte Woittiez, from Wageningen University, Netherlands, who is studying poorly balanced plant nutrition in palm oil farming. An interview with Lotte about her research will be recorded when she returns from carrying out field work in Indonesia.

A short interterview with Lotte has also been recorded. To hear this, click on the small white ‘play’ triangle at the top of the new screen that will appear.

The second runner up was Matthias Westershulte, from Osnabruck University Germany, who is studying nitrogen dynamics following slurry injection in maize. A short interview with Matthias will be recorded once he has met a pressing submission deadline!

The remaining finalists were Guillermo Raul Balboa, Helen Balshaw, Marko Flajsman, Tariro Gwandu, Basavaraj Patil, Tayyaba Samreen and Jessica Shepherd.