- Integrated Pest Management

- Applied Plant Pathology

- Crop Protection

- Sustainable Crop Production

- Agroecology

- Farmer behaviour

Henry is an Applied Plant Pathologist and IPM expert with over a decade of experience in various farming systems. His current research focuses on developing effective integrated disease management strategies for arable crops, improving IPM approaches to arable farming, increasing farmer adoption of best practice, and quantifying adoption of IPM practices at farm level through stakeholder engagement and farmer surveys.  

After completing his PhD in plant ecology and pathology at the John Innes Centre (UK) in 2013, Henry worked as a Crops Researcher for the Organic Research Centre (UK) where he was involved in large European projects on agricultural systems. In 2015, Henry moved to Teagasc (Ireland) where he worked to improve IPM approaches to arable farming and increase adoption of best practice at farm level.  He moved to SRUC in 2017 to take up a lectureship position in the Crop Protection team.

IPM practices are numerous and varied, which makes them difficult to quantify. Henry recently led a team of researchers in developing a survey and metric to measure IPM practices on arable farms (https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.5428)  and determine the barriers to further uptake of IPM practices (https://doi.org/10.1002/ps.6452). The Voluntary Initiative have based their IPM Assessment Plans on this research and, since launch at the start of 2021, over 9000 plans have been completed in the UK. IPM plans are an annual requirement of farmers operating under quality assurance schemes, such as Red Tractor and Scottish Quality Crops. This allows for the monitoring of changes in IPM practice, which provides an indication of the effectiveness of R&D and Knowledge Exchange activities related to IPM.

Henry is module coordinator for ‘New Perspectives in Plant Protection’ in the BSc Horticulture and BSc Agriculture degree programmes and ‘Plant Protection: Integrated Approaches’ in the HND Horticulture and HND Agriculture programmes. He also delivers teaching content for the following SRUC modules: Agronomy, Advanced Agronomy, Plant Protection, Plant Biotic Interactions, Organic Production Systems. He delivers teaching on the University of Edinburgh’s BSc Plant Science programme and SRUC/University of Edinburgh’s joint venture, the Global Academy of Agriculture and Food Security BSc and MSc programmes. Henry also contributes to the teaching on a course leading to professional BASIS Crop Protection Certificate.

PhD project (2020-2026) 'Enhancing Integrated Pest Management in UK Forestry'. Joint with Forestry Research and University of Edinburgh.

MSc project in Organic Farming (2020-2021) 'Significant factors in effective weed control strategies for UK organic arable crops'. 

MSc project in Sustainable Plant Health (2019-2020) Investigate the role of various mixtures on disease resistance and yield of winter barley.

MSc project in Agricultural Science (2016-2018) Identifying how to improve Knowledge Transfer relating to Integrated Pest Management (IPM) on Irish tillage farms. Joint with Teagasc and University College Dublin.

2022: ‘Biosecurity for plant health: better justification of precautionary measures’. Plant Health Centre funded. £30K. Role=CoI

2021: ‘IPM Non Broadacre Crop Review’. Defra funded. £40K. Role=CoI.

2021: 'Mapping information networks that influence farmer behaviours related to IPM adoption'. Plant Health Centre Scotland funded project. £40k. Role=PI.

2021: 'Exploring the Twitterverse: Developing novel approaches to scaling the dissemination of expert knowledge on social media platforms in Scotland'. SEFARI gateway funded project. £12k. Role=CoI.

2020-2021:  'IPM Test &Trial - Environmental Land Management - Integrated Pest Management'. Collaboration with ADAS. DEFRA funded project. £130k. Role=CoI.

2019-2020:  'Review of evidence on Integrated Pest Management'. DEFRA funded project. £55k. Role=CoI.

2018-2019:  'Network analysis – where do people in Scotland get their plant health information?’ Plant Health Centre Scotland funded project. £13k. Role=CoI.

2019-2023: 'The combined effects of tillage regime and crop variety on fungicide requirement of winter barley crops'. Mains of Loirston trust funded project. £54k. Role=PI.

2018-2022:  'Integrated Pest Management techniques with agronomy inputs to produce a profitable winter barley crop in a sustainable fashion' Mains of Loirston trust funded project. £38k. Role=PI.

2017-2021: RESAS Strategic Research Programme- WP2.1 Crop and grassland production and disease control. WP2.1.6. ‘Integrated Pest Management’. £86k. Role=PI.

2017-2021: RESAS Strategic Research Programme- WP2.3 Productive and sustainable land management. WP2.3.9 ‘Integrated Farming Systems’ £38k. WP2.3.12. ‘Uptake of best practice’ £35k.

2017-2021:  'Integrated Pest Management approaches to achieve a high feed value crop of winter barley through use of varietal mixtures'. Mains of Loirston trust funded project. £34k. Role=PI.

2015-2017:  'Establishing a Platform for Integrated Pest Management in Irish Crops’. Department of Agriculture Fisheries and the Marine Research Stimulus funded project. £200k. Role=CoI.

2013-2016:  'Coordinating Organic plant BReeding Activities for diversity. CORE organic II funded project. €3 million. Role=CoI.

2010-2014:  'Strategies for Organic and Low-input Integrated Breeding And Management' European Commision Seventh Framework (FP7) funded project. €8 million. Role=CoI.

2009-2013:  'The role of genotypic diversity in stabilizing plant productivity in variable environments’ BBSRC funded project. £150k. Role=PhD student.