Writtle College is one of the UK’s most famous and well-respected colleges for horticultural science, postharvest technology and research. Its postgraduate students are highly regarded throughout the international based industries serving horticultural crop production and the postharvest sector. Many of our graduates obtain employment with major wholesale, retail and import/export organisations where produce quality is paramount and where supply objectives are on a global scale.
The MSc courses were launched in 1996 and are validated by the University of Essex. The courses have proved popular with international students from around the world. In the current cohort we have students from Iraq, Brunei, Romania, Uganda, Columbia and Ireland.
Each year the courses attract a number of part-time students from industry, or from students wishing to change their career direction. Normally part-time students only attend one day per week during the taught periods of the courses.
There is increasing international trade in horticultural products and horticultural production is becoming more important in many countries around the world. Graduates of these courses are well placed to find good career opportunities in horticultural production and postharvest technology.
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Facilities
The college campus and surrounding gardens are home to an educational collection of catalogued plants. There is a plant collection of over 10,000 specimens and a tree collection of over 1.200 specimens.
The grounds can provide students with practical case study sites, as well as an attractive environment in which to learn and study. Some campus facilities are devoted entirely to horticultural education and research and are used for practical training purposes, case studies and dissertations.
A research glasshouse is split into four zones. The environmental conditions of each zone are independently controlled so that different crops can be grown in appropriate conditions at the same time.
The Postharvest Unit has a well-equipped laboratory and a long record of undertaking applied research on an international basis in many aspects of crop handling, packaging transport and storage. The Unit also provides specialist training courses for companies in this sector.
The College Library provides one of the leading specialist book and information collections in the country, including a wide range of literature on horticulture.
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Graduate Profile - Arshad Yaseen
Arshad Yaseen, the former manager of tomato glasshouses in Kurdish autonomous region of Iraq, came to Writtle College on a Kurdish government scholarship.
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Graduate Profile - Jeanne Chinama Rusizana
Jeanne Chinama Rusizana has returned to her role as horticulture technician at her university in Rwanda.
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2012 Graduate Profile - Irina Pop
Irina came to the UK from Romania to work on a fruit farm and took the MSc Horticulture (Crop Production) course part-time, graduating in 2012. In her second year, she set up a blueberry packaging trial in Chile as part of her dissertation in conjunction with Fresh Technologies, and she now works for the company. She has recently returned from California where further trials took place.
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Graduate Profile - Henry Gurney
Henry completed the MSc Horticulture (Crop Production) in 2013. From there he set up his own business and says "I have set up a small fruit growing business trading as Norfolk Quick Pick which is mostly PYO based. At present there are two small sites and growing a mixture of strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries. All either potted or bagged and fed hydroponically and cropping from May to September. Its good fun and great way to learn the ropes! I also continue to do one day a week with Berry Gardens as a soft fruit pest monitor."
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Current Student Profile - Godfrey Kamanda
Godfrey has travelled from Uganda to study for a MSc Horticulture (Crop Production) at the Essex-based College, thanks to the Marshal Papworth Scholarship, a scheme run by the East of England Agricultural Society to give those in developing countries the chance to develop skills to take back to their homelands and use for the benefit of their own communities.
“On my course, I am learning from the most experienced lecturers - John Cullum, for Horticulture, and Dr Chris Bishop, for Postharvest Technology. They make you ambitious, curious and show you what is happening in the world and make me believe that I can make a change. They have given me that support and showed me how."
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Current Student Profile - Luis Carlos Maya
Luis Carlos Maya came from Columbia to join the MSc Postharvest Technology. He works for the company Westfalia Fruit Columbia and Luis is involved with avocado exports to Europe. Storing these fruits correctly so that they arrive in Europe in peak condition is very important.
Luis has also worked in flower production and he has a keen interest in breeding new varieties of orchid.
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Part-time study on MSc Horticulture/Postharvest Technology
Currently we have 7 students who are studying part-time, 4 of whom are pictured above.
Anca (standing middle-left) comes from Romania and is studying MSc PHT. She started in September 2013 and recently assisted the Postharvest Unit with an industrial consultancy in Spain looking at quality control in a citrus grading factory. She plans to work in the postharvest industry when she graduates later this year.
Michael (on the right) currently works with fresh produce and started the MSc Horticulture course in September 2014. He travels in from Cambridge for 1 day per week. He hopes to use his qualification to move into the production side of horticulture.
Steve (on the left) and Natasha (middle-right) both started the course in January 2015. Steve did a BSc in amenity horticulture in his native Ireland. Now in the UK, he is more involved in crop production and has therefore enrolled on the MSc Horticulture (Crop Production) route as a means of increasing his knowledge of this sector of the industry. For Natasha, joining the MSc scheme was to help her fulfil her plans to make a change in career from nursing to horticulture.
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New Modules
We have been able to introduce two new option modules this year to the MSc Horticulture programme. Part of the new MSc Sustainable Land Use under Global Change, these modules can be accessed by the MSc Horticulture students. Environmental Policy and Leadership Skills allows students to explore new approaches to sustainability through case study work. The Food Security and Sustainable Agriculture module explores issues of food production at a time of rapidly expanding world population and a changing climate. Both modules provide the opportunity to work and interact with other postgraduate students within the school so allowing multidisciplinary approaches.
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Trial for Tozer Seeds conducted at Writtle College
Writtle College students have been working on crop trials for a major breeder and supplier of chilli peppers and tomatoes in the UK.
The 2014 crop trial conducted in the research glasshouse featured over 40 cultivars of chilli peppers all provided by Tozer Seeds.
The Tozer trials at Writtle College also contained a range of speciality tomatoes and sweet peppers, which are from Tozer’s own breeding programme as well as from their marketing partners.
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Trip to Fruit Logistica
Seven of the MSc students plus one PhD student went to Fruit Logistica in Berlin with their lecturer Chris Bishop. Fruit Logistica is the major annual trade fair of the fresh produce industry with around 55,000-60,000 attendees over the three days. The tickets for the students were kindly provided by Agrofresh. The photograph shows Mark Tulley (a former student) from Agrofresh, Chris Bishop and three of the MSc students.
The students all found the event fascinating if very large and a number of them made useful contacts for future jobs as well as seeing a number of new developments in packaging, machinery and crop varieties.
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Dr Reguieg Lies
Dr Reguieg Lies, from the Department of Agronomy at the Advanced College of Agronomy, Algeria, visited the College in November. Here he is seen speaking to MSc Horticulture students about his research work on breeding tomato cultivars suitable for production in hot countries.
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Breeding a hardy Osteospermum
For the past five years our Horticulture students have been making selections from crosses between two common cultivars of hardy Osteospermum = O. jucundum and O. ‘Lady Leitrim’.
Osteospermums are easy plants to breed as they are self-sterile, so when the two parents are grown close to each other cross-pollination occurs and seeds are set. The resultant seedlings show a wide range of flower colours and growth types. Seedlings which are thought to be of commercial interest are selected and then maintained by taking cuttings, as they do not ‘breed true’ from seeds.
Some garden centres and nurseries are not keen to stock hardy Osteospermums as they can grow into large clumps of plants – unsuitable for a small garden. Also, some of the older varieties do not flower for very long and some gardeners dislike them for this reason.
What is needed is a plant which is smaller and flowers for long periods. One of the seedlings selected by students and named as ‘Little Writtle’ is now being commercialised.
Suttons Seeds have agreed to include ‘Little Writtle’ in their 2015 online catalogue. Plants are now being propagated at Hargreaves Plants in Huntingdon, which supplies Suttons Seeds.
Initially 1,000 plants will be produced. Horticulture students are also busy propagating ‘Little Writtle’ to sell at College events.
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Horticulture student Ran, from China, potting Little Writtle plants in the Research Glasshouse at Writtle College
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Botanist and broadcaster James Wong and other industry leaders attend Writtle College Employability Day
Writtle College students gained specialist advice, guidance and information about potential career opportunities.
A wide range of industry experts – including botanist and broadcaster James Wong – attended the College’s Employability Day in November.
As well as presenter and science writer James Wong, College alumnus Tim Goodman, who set up the Living Bar Company, spoke to Horticulture students.
There were also representatives from G’s Fresh, Waitrose, Sutton Seeds and Cornelius Group PLC as well as a New Product Development Brewing Technologist at Muntons.
It comes after the Horticulture staff used their close links with industry to provide students with top guest speakers and networking opportunities in the College’s Employability Week, held in March. The following horticultural companies participated:
o Thompson & Morgan (one of the UK's largest mail order seed and plant companies)
o Tozer Seeds (independent British vegetable breeding company)
o G's-Fresh (growers of salads and vegetables)
o Perrywood Garden Centre & Nurseries
o Provender Nurseries
Some companies were able to advertise vacancies at the event.
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Student profile
Collen Mutema, from Zimbabwe
Now a Project Analyst, Food, at Sensitech, the world’s leading provider of supply chain visibility solutions
BSc (Hons) Horticulture and MSc Postharvest Technology
“After searching for the best Horticulture colleges in the UK, Writtle College came up as the one and only institution of choice.
“Coming from a commercial-orientated background, I immediately took interest in the commercial and postharvest modules. Soon after completing my degree, I enrolled on the MSc Postharvest Technology and, halfway through the course, a job opportunity with Sensitech came up. The interview process was rigorous and, after several telephone interviews with staff in the USA, I was offered the job – before even sitting my final exams and submitting my dissertation.
“I am responsible for conducting projects designed to help companies involved in the production or distribution of temperature-sensitive food products to determine the root cause of cold chain problems and the appropriate corrective action. I work from home, travel across Europe, Middle East, Africa and the Americas and get to work with some of the big global food companies.
“All this could not have been possible without the help and guidance of Writtle College staff who have been there from the beginning of my journey – due to the size of the institution, every willing student is given the lecturers' full attention.�
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Global following for Writtle College lecturer's Plant of the Day blog
A daily blog about plants written by Writtle College lecturer Dr Jill Raggett now has a global following!
Jill, Reader in Gardens and Designed Landscapes, started writing the blog – which features a plant a day - in September 2013 and it is now getting over 4,000 hits a month!
She takes an original photograph in the previous week so it is seasonally relevant and then includes a fact or comments about the plant’s cultivation, history, use or design.
It was devised as a means to encourage students to look at plants around them – whether they are in gardens, parks, on the street or in supermarket car parks – and to observe how plants can be used, add value and misused.
She now has 750 followers – and the majority are not Writtle College students but people worldwide who enjoy plants and gardens, from students in community colleges in the USA and Canada, students studying landscape design in Canada, Argentinian landscape architects, people interested in plants in Korea and Japan, and the very proactive students of the prestigious Longwood Gardens in the USA, as well as people in Italy, Romania and Poland.
She said: “My hope is the blog's archive section will be useful especially to horticultural and design students as it is seasonal and they can view plants in the UK by the relevant month of their display to help with their designs!"
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Lecturer becomes Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture
Senior Horticulture Lecturer Sandra Nicholson has been made a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Horticulture.
She was given the Fellowship at the Annual General Meeting at the RHS Lindley Hall, London.
Sandra said: “Having been a member of the Institute of Horticulture for many years, I am honoured to have been made a Fellow of the Institute and particularly in the year that it received Chartered Status.�
Amongst the other new Fellows was Dr Phil Askew, a renowned Landscape Architect, Urban Designer and Horticulturist, who worked on the Olympic Park. Dr Askew is an alumnus of Writtle College and was given an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Essex in 2012.
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Writtle College academic named a National Teaching Fellow
Writtle College academic Dr Anya Perera has been awarded a National Teaching Fellowship - the most prestigious award for excellence in higher education teaching and support for learning.
Anya, who teaches on the Horticulture scheme at Writtle College, is one of only 55 higher education staff across the country to be awarded a National Teaching Fellowship by The Higher Education Academy (HEA).
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Student Profile - Mehmet Ugur Kahraman
Mehmet (right) is shown here assisting Writtle marketing staff promoting our university level courses at a recent educational fair in Turkey.
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Come to our next Open Day!
Our next campus Open Day will be on Wednesday 8th April from 11am to 3pm.
The University-Level Open Days give prospective students and guests the perfect opportunity to find out more about what's on offer at Writtle College.
Throughout the day you will have the opportunity to learn all about Writtle College, meet course representatives, tour the campus with current students, discover student life at Writtle College, and learn about the support available to students.
Pre-event registration is required, to avoid disappointment. To register, please contact Admissions on 01245 424200, email openday@writtle.ac.uk, or apply online on the link below.
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