Back in January, we had the pleasure of hosting a visit from the Quality Meat Scotland Monitor Farm Group and Advisory Board members, as part of a study tour with the theme “Thinking over the Fence”. This is a very influential and progressive group, drawn from right across Scotland, the majority of whom are livestock farmers. They were particularly interested to see the facilities at Moredun and hear about the ongoing research, especially around topics they had either encountered on-farm or discussed throughout the first year of the Monitor Farm Programme.
Coordinated by Moredun’s Dr Philip Skuce, who sits on the Monitor Farm Advisory Board, the group was treated to a whistle-stop tour. The group was welcomed by our Scientific Director and CEO, Dr Tom McNeilly, who led off a series of short talks in the Lecture Theatre. These covered sheep scab control on Lewis & Harris (Dr Stew Burgess), ticks and tick-borne diseases (Dr Mara Rocchi), sustainable worm control (Dr Dave Bartley) and targeted selective treatment/novel technologies (Dr Fiona Kenyon). The group was then treated to a parasitology lab tour, hosted by Dr Lynsey Melville and PhD student, Eilidh Geddes, who discussed faecal egg counting and their new FEC Check app. Andrew Kelloe from the Knowledge Exchange and Communications team then took the group outside to see the Moredun Mobile Laboratory and demonstrated how we use the bus for research in the field, extension work and knowledge exchange activities.
The group was suitably impressed with their visit and have requested that we bring the Mobile Laboratory and our team along to one of their Monitor Farm events in the summer
