A work placement with ADAS – Daisy tells her story

Earlier this year, recent graduate Daisy Campion undertook a short placement with ADAS to complement her horticulture studies. We caught up with Daisy after her placement finished to find out about her career journey and what she got up with the ADAS horticulture team.

I finished my degree this year at Myerscough College through the University of Central Lancashire. The degree route I took was a little complicated – it was a top up BSc Horticultural Science and Management after doing the two year Foundation Degree (FdSc) in Horticulture and Applied Plant Science. I had originally planned to do my full degree in Anthropology and Archaeology but did the first year and realised I wanted the degree in Horticultural Science after all.

I reached out to ADAS because for the second year of the foundation degree, I did a substrate trial which used ADAS’ research for lab?testing growing media. Then in my third year, I had a recommendation to reach out to ADAS by Louisa Baker from The Institute for Agriculture and Horticulture (TIAH). I didn’t know you could contact ADAS about short term placements but Louisa said I should try so I did!

Spending every day with the team at ADAS in Cambridge was a varied and enlightening experience. To give just a taster of what we got up to on each day:

• On day one, we took indices for a house plant trial of different peat-free growing media funded by a manufacturer wanting to monitor quality against current available brands.
• Day two, we drove to a site to lay a specific native, known to have floral potential as a goose down alternative, in a paludiculture setup with the intention of observing the optimum conditions for flowering.
• Day three, we prepared natural predators to evenly distribute among host specimens, to facilitate their rapid reproduction for the moving onto a certain crop liable to this pest damage.
• Day four, we replaced parasitoid wasp petri dish lids for observation (seeing if they were mummifying the aphids as intended) to a more breathable sort to reduce humidity.
• Day five, we used a choice test for woodlice to see the reaction to acetic acid to find some answers to the question of what attracts woodlice to apples, an issue growers are increasingly coming into contact with.

I also got to contribute to the?ADAS Hardy Nursery Stock Notes?that the ADAS Horticulture team sends out to growers.

Much more happened in between, and I appreciated all of it. I’m grateful for the opportunities presented and to the whole ADAS team. I’m really looking forward to working with ADAS again in the future.