Last year we had the pleasure of working with Newcastle University on our bio-control work. One student, Zoe Gilroy, has kindly written a blog post about her experience with us. Thank you Zoe, for all your hard work and input over the past year, and we wish you all the best in your future endeavours.
Over the last year I have had the pleasure of working with the Tees River Trust while completing my 4th year dissertation. I am an integrated masters student at Newcastle University, and chose to do my dissertation on using rust fungus as a biocontrol of invasive Himalayan Balsam. At my first fieldwork date I met both the CABI and Tees River Trust teams who were incredibly accommodating and I was excited to get started on the data collection.
I learned so much during the data collection. This involved spraying of the Himalayan balsam, monitoring the initial infection on the leaves and collecting environmental data such as light intensity and soil cores. Not only were my fieldwork skills improved throughout this process, but also my communication and teamworking skills, as there was a lot of work to get done over a short period of time, making collaboration essential. Support from Chloe and Jenn at the Tees River Trust didn’t stop at the end of the fieldwork. They were on hand throughout the year to help answer my numerous questions relating to the details of the methodology and rust fungus release!
By completing my dissertation with the support of Tees River Trust I have learned so much about the process of a large scale project in an industry context. I feel that this has allowed me to gain a greater knowledge of the type of jobs I’d like to progress into, and develop many of the skills necessary for this. I look forward to hearing the long term conclusions from this project!
If you are interested in becoming a volunteer, or undertaking some work experience, please get in touch with us here.