THE award winner for the BASIS "Paul Singleton Project of the Year Award" has been announced.

The winning project from Rosalind Martin, Bayer commercial technical adviser for the North-West, investigates how cover crop debris affects pre-emergence herbicide efficacy and wheat crop emergence.

She said: “In recent years, there has been a surge in interest in the use of cover crops and direct drilling establishment techniques.

“However, when cover crops are sprayed off and winter wheat is direct drilled, the cover crop debris remains on the ground. It is then unknown how this may impact crop emergence and the efficacy of pre-emergence herbicides.”

Her project compared two plots, one where the cover crop debris was removed by hand and one where the debris was left in its natural state. The conclusion was that this style of integrated weed management can give good control of medium pressure blackgrass, and also indicated that debris doesn’t affect crop emergence.

Rosalind is delighted with the win, which has been judged against the top five projects which are a fundamental element of the Certificate in Crop Protection training from BASIS.