Hello, I’m John Murrie and I am one of the Technical Managers at Agrovista covering Scotland and North West England. I live in Angus in the North East of Scotland and provide technical support for the team of agronomists in my area and oversee all the Scottish trials. I also lead the Forage working group.
I have been an Agronomist for nearly 30 years and previously worked in the grain trade and I suppose just found myself doing more forage work. I also have a keen interest in game cover and cover crops so it’s just a natural fit. A lot of the agronomists in the area I cover are very involved in forage agronomy so it’s a common topic.
There is no typical day working at Agrovista which is one of the major attractions. Although I am one of the Technical Managers I also still have some agronomy clients so I am seeing on the ground on a daily basis what is happening so am better able to support the agronomists within my teams as well seeing first-hand how well the products we recommend work on farm and not just in trials. I am also a partner in the family farm which more and more acts as a trial farm but also shows the courage of my convictions. Part of my job is briefing the various teams I am responsible for as well as producing some of the presentations. Normally when I try to set aside some time to do this I get side tracked helping out a client or an agronomist and then the day is gone but as I say that is all part of the job and finding a solution to a potential problem is definitely a highlight.
Forage is definitely not seen as one of the sexier areas of agronomy but with a move to Regenerative Agriculture getting more livestock back onto farms this could slowly change. Also, forage crops and grassland perhaps have been slightly overlooked and there is plenty scope to develop this area. In particular I am looking to expand the Agrovista Innovation range into forage where we look for non-crop protection products to help the forage clients produce a bigger bulk of more nutritious forage.