Student awarded European study tour by Ball Colegrave Scholarship

The Ball Colegrave Scholarship, sponsored by Ball Colegrave the UK's leading distributor of commercial seed and plug plants, provides up to £2,500 for the winner to travel to Europe in order to develop their knowledge and experience in plant production.

Stuart Lowen, Marketing Manager at Ball Colegrave and Trustee of the DCF comments: “I am delighted for David in being selected to receive this award. David has a real passion for plants and has already demonstrated a good understanding of commercial horticulture. His travel to Europe will give David a much greater insight whilst maintaining his commercial perspective on a number of key areas of horticulture such as plant breeding, research, production and retail.”

David is currently completing a BSc (Hons) Horticulture with Business Management while working as an assistant garden centre manager, and he will start a Msc in Horticulture (Crop production) at Writtle College in September 2013. He is also experienced in several horticultural based roles where he has worked as a trainee agricultural journalist, a horticultural tutor and trainee garden centre manager. Delighted to receive the award, he comments: “I want to broaden my horticultural knowledge and open my mind to new and innovative ideas, techniques and practices by visiting and meeting industry figures across Europe. I will achieve a greater understanding of the complexities and challenges of the industry from a European level and this will equip me to bring a pool of ideas back to the UK, helping me contribute greatly to our industry in the coming years.”

David is planning a three part trip around Europe over the summer of 2013. During the his trip David plans to travel to Greece to get academic perspectives and scientific understandings on the industry from Thessaloniki University where he will visit lab, botanic gardens and undertake some plant pathology work. Following this he will visit the Channel Islands to see several garden centres including a farm on the Island of Jersey and Le Friquent Garden Centre, Guernsey, head office of the Blue Diamond garden centre group. Finally David will visit Holland to take in the Holland Bulb Market, a visit with a plant seller from Aalsmeer flower auction and attend a meeting with members of PanAmerican seed company.

For more details on Scholarships provided by the DCF, go to www.davidcolegravefoundation.org.uk and click on scholarships.