Virtual meeting offers online tours of innovative Canola plots

An online meeting will give an update of an innovative project exploring the possibility of growing organic oilseed rape (Canola) in Scotland.

Scotland’s Rural College (SRUC) is leading the Scottish Organic Canola (SCOCAN) project, which was awarded a £30,000 grant from the Knowledge Transfer and Innovation Fund (KTIF).

Led by Dr Robin Walker, the project - which was highlighted on BBC Scotland’s Landward programme - came out of a Rural Innovation Support Service (RISS) fact-finding mission to Sweden, where approximately 10 per cent of the oilseed rape area is grown organically.

With guidance from agronomist Andy Cheetham, from Ceres Agri Services, large plots of oilseed rape have been planted on five farms across the north east of Scotland.

The virtual update, by SRUC and Ceres Agri Services, will include a visual tour of the demonstration plots on the farms collated during the last few months.

It will also present some of the mid-season data from across the five farms and discuss possible crop management options going forward.

The event will be held on Wednesday 24 June using SRUC's web-based teaching platform Go-to-Meeting.

Those interested in attending the event should sign up via Eventbrite. They will then need to download the Go-to-Meeting app and will be sent the instructions and appropriate links for joining the event. For those unable to attend on the day, a recording of the event will be made available afterwards.

To sign up, visit the Eventbrite page.

Posted by SRUC on 17/06/2020