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Bees, grapes and hops brought together for new campus demonstration area

Posted 17 July

Bees, grapes and hops have been brought together for a new demonstration area on the south side of the Harper Adams campus to be used by students across a wide range of University courses.

The site now contains an apiary – or collection of beehives – as well as a trellis of hops and a collection of grape vines.

Reader in Entomology, Dr Tom Pope, was among those who worked to get the new demonstration area set up.

He said: “The new demonstration area has been established to showcase vines and hops, two crops that link some of the expertise we have at the University in agronomy and crop protection with that we have in food processing and marketing.

“The grape vines link to the recently-established vineyard elsewhere on the Harper Adams estate, while the hops complement the vines and build on the University’s links with local brewers.

“The Entomology Group also has an ongoing project investigating the management of a key pest of hops, the damson-hop aphid.

“I’d like to thank Future Farm Business Development Manager Dr Grace Milburn for her work making a case for this site, Harper Adams Ground Manager, Mark Hall, for his work in getting the plants set up here – and my colleague Simon Irvin, who has interests in management of honey bees, for lending his expertise in establishing the apiary.”

Among those planning to use the demonstration area as it establishes are the Entomology Group and undergraduates on linked courses, undergraduates on Food Science degrees, and also Veterinary Medicine students at the Harper and Keele Vet School, where bee health is part of the curriculum. 

Professor Frank Vriesekoop, an expert in Food Biotechnology who has research interests in malting, brewing and distilling, is keen to begin using produce from the demonstration site to produce new beers, wines – and even meads.

He said: “Both the fruits from the grape vines and the hops will be used in various produce we will generate at Harper Adams.

“Those grapes and the hops are also there  - in that convenient-to-access location - as demonstration ‘crops’ to showcase what we can grow at Harper Adams – and what we can incorporate into products we manufacture here.

“While the simplest interrelationship is the fact that they can be incorporated into alcoholic beverages, what we want people to take away from this site is the notion that what we do at Harper Adams is about linking agriculture to food and beverage production – it is a physical demonstration of that work.

“We will also absolutely be using the honey produced by the bees – I’ve already been discussing mead brewing techniques with Tom!”