Tuesday 13 December 1100-1400 (Includes refreshments and lunch)

Miscanthus Nursery – led by Mike Cooper – Lower Marsh Farm, Kingston St Mary, Taunton TA2 8AB (What 3 words double.cities.windy)

Are you interested in planting miscanthus on your land? Or do you already have a miscanthus crop and want to know more about its management, harvesting and the potential markets?  

Whatever your questions, whether they concern agronomy, economics or logistics expert Mike Cooper will be able to provide all the answers.

You’ll get to see some high yielding miscanthus crops, the biomass boiler using miscanthus chip and examples of other uses such as horse bedding, briquettes and miscrete.

This farm walk is in association with Envirocrops – a project supported by the Government’s Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme. Members of the Envirocrops team will be on hand to give you the latest information on the web app that is being developed to provide decision support to farmers and consultants.

Thursday 15 December 1100-1400 (Includes refreshments and lunch)

Willow Energy – led by Jamie Rickerby – Rickerby Buildings, Currock Road, Carlisle, Cumbria CA2 4AU

Are you interested in planting Short Rotation Coppice Willow on your land? Or do you already have a SRC crop and want to know more about its management, harvesting and the potential markets?  

Whatever your questions, whether they concern agronomy, economics or logistics expert contractor Jamie Rickerby will be able to provide all the answers.

You’ll get to see some high yielding SRC willow crops, the machinery involved and even get to have a go on the planter! There will also be plenty of insight into new and emerging markets for willow feedstocks.

This farm walk is in association with Envirocrops – a project supported by the Government’s Biomass Feedstocks Innovation Programme. Members of the Envirocrops team will be on hand to give you the latest information on the web app that is being developed to provide decision support to farmers and consultants.

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To sign up for either of these farm walks please state your name and contact number with either:

Tuesday 13 December 1100-1400: Miscanthus Nursery – led by Mike Cooper

or, Thursday 15 December 1100-1400: Willow Energy – led by Jamie Rickerby

…in the header of the email (if you wish to come to both please indicate this in the contents of the email). Please send the email to info@nfuenergy.co.uk and expect an email back from us with more details about where to meet and when by return. Please sign up by no later than our deadline of Friday 9th December.

About the Growers

Mike Cooper

Originating from a farming family, Mike spent 32 out of his 50 years of continued employment with one Agricultural merchanting company as a highly committed manager with a good understanding of commercial Agricultural and the ability to build strong relationships in the industry.

Growing perennial energy crops in support of annual food crops has interested him since 1984 when one of the first Miscanthus and SRC trial plots was planted in Devon and run by Jon Harvey head agronomist with the Ministry of Agriculture at Starcross Devon.

Since 2009, Mike has been running Miscanthus Nursery Ltd (MNL), growing some c2000 acres of Miscanthus and consulting on a further c3000 acres. MNL is a Grower Cooperative owned & operated by a group of Farmers who understand the importance of this crop in supporting environmental Agriculture and climate change.

Aware of the Climate Change Committee’s call for 30,000 ha of perennial bio-energy crops (including Miscanthus) to be planted in the UK per annum to help meet the 2050 carbon zero target, Mike is frustrated by the lack of Governmental promotion of this most valuable crop group for the future, and is determined to help enable its potential as part of a circular economy. 

Jamie Rickerby

Jamie has always been interested in farm machinery – with his 140-year-old family business being the main Claas dealer in the north west. For the last 10 years Jamie has run Willow Energy and accumulated an enormous amount of experience as a planting and harvesting contractor of Short Rotation Coppice (SRC) willow. In this time the company has planted 779 hectares and harvested 5,500 hectares of SRC with a total biomass output of 225,000 tonnes.

SRC contracting is not an easy occupation. Most of the machinery was not designed for the UK’s maritime climate and Jamie has accumulated a wealth of knowledge on what works and what doesn’t. Jamie is currently leading the BEIS funded Net Zero Willow project, which aims to construct, test and develop to full commercial deployment three innovations that will enable the rapid scaling up of the UK biomass supply chain. The proposed machines will facilitate the efficient multiplication, planting and harvesting of SRC willow crops through include increased automation, reduced handling and lighter machinery that result in a lower environmental footprint.

Willow Energy works in partnership with the Iggesund paperboard mill for whom they provide contract planting, maintenance and harvesting services.  In the last five years WE has begun multiplying SRC willow varieties on license with Rothamsted Research.  

Jamie is passionate about agriculture and the countryside. With advancements in technology, there is a huge potential to make British agriculture more efficient and sustainable for future generations. With the advent of artificial intelligence technologies, farmers will be able to tend to individual plants rather than fields of crop. The ability to tend individual plants will increase productivity per hectare and free up land to be used for biodiversity and energy production through parental energy crops. Jamie is excited to have been funded through the BEIS Biomass feedstock innovation program to develop artificial intelligence technology which will help scale up the production planting and harvesting of SRC willow throughout the UK and beyond.

About EnviroCrops

The EnviroCrops consortium, led by the Agri Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) with support from two energy in agriculture consultancies: Crops for Energy Ltd and NFU Energy and a software development company, Calvium, has been set up to create an app. 

The EnviroCrops web app is envisaged as a central source of impartial information in an easy to access, free or low-cost, user-friendly format, that will enable farmers, land managers and consultants to make an informed decision about planting biomass crops. 

The intention is to work with growers and contractors so that they can constantly update yield models with new information and keep the app outputs relevant to a changing climate. 

Callout for participants:

If you are considering biomass crops as a grower or user, or you are just interested in finding out more information, then we’d love to hear from you. Please email Roger at roger.stones@nfuenergy.co.uk to register your interest and become part of the project testing team.