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Crop and soil health expert joins CHAP

CHAP’s commitment to supporting innovation in soil and crop health has been boosted further, following the appointment of Dr Andy Evans.

Dr Evans, an applied crop entomologist/nematologist, joins as Sector Team Lead, a role reporting to Innovation Director, Dr Ruth Bastow. He will oversee CHAP’s five Innovation Sector Leads, covering a broad range of subjects from the field of crop production.

Scotland-based Dr Evans, said: “Having been involved for nearly 40 years’ in crop and soil health research, consultancy, knowledge exchange, and recently in the commercial sector, joining CHAP feels very synergistic with my past experience in developing and promoting integrated pest management (IPM) approaches to sustainable crop production.”

Prior to joining CHAP, Dr Evans worked in the commercial sector developing and evaluating organic soil amendments to improve soil and crop health. Before this he was the Applied Practice Team Lead in the Crop & Soil Systems research group at SRUC, joining back in 1991 under its former guise as SAC.

His interest in pest-plant interactions began during his time at Wageningen University where he looked at insect antifeedants, and during a period at the University of Aberdeen researching locust antifeedants.

For his PhD he studied the role of odours and colour in the attraction of pests to oilseed rape, and has continued to research pest-plant interactions above and below ground throughout his career.

Dr Evans added: “The need to develop new tools for the IPM ‘toolbox’ and in particular, utilising rapid advances in technology and making them accessible to growers, is a challenge that CHAP is well placed to engage with.

“This is particularly prevalent given the growing network of academic and commercial relationships that CHAP is continuing to develop.”

CHAP has also welcomed Financial Controller, Pippa Jackson to the team. Pippa previously worked in a range of industries including renewable energy, financial services, marketing and the Third Sector.

AAT (Association of Accounting Technicians) and CIMA (Chartered Institute of Management Accountants) qualified, Pippa will manage the day-to-day financial requirements of CHAP, reporting directly to the Finance Director.

 

Learn more about CHAP and our Team. If you are interested in joining our team, keep up to date with our vacancies by using the drop-down tab menu at the top of our About page. For any other queries, please send us an email using the enquiries form at the bottom of our homepage.