Velcourt is planning a busy stand at Cereals 2010 encompassing succession planning, agronomy, research and development and biodiversity.

Its Cereals Challenge, in conjunction with HL Hutchinsons, will see six colleges – Askham Bryan, Harper Adams, the Royal Agricultural College, Hartpury, Riseholme and Writtle – battling it out to grow the best plot of wheat.

Colleges pitched to take a plot and enter the competition, which will be judged at Cereals 2010.

The variety is Glasgow and the students have needed to manage the plot all year covering the agronomy, including fungicides, PGRs, nitrogen and herbicides.

The best plot will be judged on head counts, the approach the team took to managing the plot and the decisions they made. The winning team will receive a cash prize and a trophy.

There will be small plot variety trials – half the plot left to the elements, half treated with Bayer’s new carboxamide bixafen.

Velcourt research and development in focus will feature a poster display on the extent of Velcourt research and development, what the company does, who they work with, the LINK projects they have an are involved in and TSB tenders they have submitted.

WRAP, a demonstration of anaerobic digestate on spring barley as a compost and fertiliser, will show that this is a safe nutrient source.

For the centre piece, a block of wheat and sacks of wheat will be placed to represent the yields 25 years ago, the yields last year and the yields needed in 25 years to feed the growing population.

This display will outline technology change, innovation, developments – where has it come from and what needs to be done to keep these improvements and advances going.

It will also include facts and figures on prices, costs of oil, cost/use of labour, machinery requirements and mechanisation changes.

The Virus infected Oilseed Rape plot will show OSR treated with Cruiser, Modesta and fungicide treatments. The RSPB area will highlight different wild flower and pollen and nectar mixes.

And the spray nozzle and application demonstration will show the influence of position on target, profiling a semi-automated system that allows nozzle changes on the move.

• Cereals 2010 exhibitor information as supplied by Velcourt.