How Can Waste Improve Your Crops? Horticulture 2012

Horticulture 2012 is fast approaching. It’s time to make sure you have marked Wednesday 19 September 2012 in your diary for this major event. The seminars, demonstrations, tours and trade exhibition all taking place during this one day attraction at Greenmount Campus, Antrim, will encompass all sectors of commercial and amenity horticulture across Northern Ireland

The very comprehensive seminar programme will have something to offer everyone involved in landscaping and amenity provision, production horticulture and sports turf and groundsmanship. The organising committee are particularly pleased to be able to announce Dr Ian Garner Northern Ireland manager with the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) will give a presentation on improving soils using quality compost and digestate during the seminar programme.

WRAP was set up in 2000 and is a national government programme established to help facilitate recycling in the UK. It is funded by all four governments across the UK and also by the EU with programmes being delivered in Northern Ireland as well as England, Scotland and Wales.

WRAP’s vision is to provide ‘a world without waste where resources are used sustainably’. They provide expertise, research and practical advice working closely with large UK businesses, trade bodies and local authorities in areas of recycling and resource management.

WRAPs biggest impact in horticulture has been the use of composted materials as soil improvers and also to provide nutritional value. The composted material known as the green compost product is made up of botanical residues such as grass clippings and other material from plants derived from parks, gardens and amenity areas.

The green compost product is produced under BSI PAS 100 (2011) the British Standards Institution’s Publicly Available Specification for Composted Materials. The compost is independently assessed and verified by a certification scheme, for example The Compost Association.

This product is now used extensively in field vegetables, salads and fruit crops and in the sports and grounds maintenance industry.

Following a WRAP organised UK wide research project which included support from a number of Northern Ireland nursery stock and bedding plant growers and Greenmount Campus, the use of green compost is now common place as a peat alternative component in both retail compost and professional compost supplies to the horticulture industry in the UK.

Wrap also provide support to the construction, retail and hospitality and food service sectors via business support, communication support, marketing advice and funding.

The trade exhibition of over 90 stands at Horticulture 2012 offers a tremendous opportunity for visitors to meet suppliers and service providers, from a large number of local and national companies and organisations.

If you are involved in the horticulture industry, Horticulture 2012 event is an event not to be missed.

Source: DARD - How Can Waste Improve Your Crops? Horticulture 2012

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