ONE OF the UK’s top arable farmers, Scott Campbell, was at last week's AgriScot to hail a team from the college's Edinburgh campus as winners of the annual Winter Wheat Challenge.

Sponsored by the Mains of Loirston Charitable Trust, the Winter Wheat Challenge sees teams of students left to make management decisions on their own plots, including variety, seed rate, fertiliser and crop protection – with the award going to the team who make the best return after paying for their variable costs.

Pitting students from Aberdeen and Edinburgh against each other, this was the second year in a row that the trophy made its way to the capital – the triumphant King’s Buildings quintet comprised Allan Ferrie of Newcastleton, Charlie Fullarton of Kelso, Gareth Hall of Galashiels, Conner McCaig of Newton Stewart, and Gregor Service of Stranraer.

While not producing the highest average yield over the competition’s three sites, the team delivered a respectable average yield of 8.7 tonnes/hectare with the variety Elicit, a Group 3 soft wheat. The highest-yielding crop – 9.3 tonnes/hectare, from a crop of KWS Lili – was achieved by the second-placed team from Edinburgh, but the winning team grew their crop with lower overall input costs for seed, fertiliser and sprays.

Once the crops were harvested, a grain sample from each team was sent to grain merchant WN Lindsay for analysis and a spot price based on variety and quality. The winning team were offered £140 per tonne for their grain, close to the highest price of £143 per tonne offered to the second-placed team.

Mr Campbell, who himself graduated from SRUC’s Craibstone campus in 2004, said: “I’d like to congratulate everyone who took part in this year’s Winter Wheat Challenge, particularly the winners. It was a difficult year in terms of disease and they made some excellent choices in terms of sprays. The Winter Wheat Challenge is a brilliant competition – it encourages young people, the farmers of the future, to get out into the field and learn some of things that you just can’t learn in the classroom.”

Team leader Allan said: “It was a lot of hard work but we’re absolutely delighted to have won. We’ve definitely learned a lot from the competition and look forward to putting some of these skills into practice in the real world.”