What a week!

As with most activities surrounding agriculture, June and July are always busy months, however last week proved to be busy in the extreme for an employee of James Hutton Limited!   

Having been travelling overseas to visit various collaborators and customers throughout the  month,  last week would see me travel south early in the week to London during the record-breaking 40-degree temperatures…!

Whilst fortunate to have been invited to attend a prestigious awards dinner, held by our partners and licencing agents Global Plant Genetic’s, enjoyment of the event itself was soon forgotten amidst the subsequent trials and tribulations of major travel disruption caused by the unusually high temperatures.

Home…eventually!

Intent on returning to Scotland as close as planned, and with a calendar bursting at the seams with no less than four groups of visitors planned in as many days for the rest of the week, the full repertoire of trains, planes, buses and toes were deployed to cobble my way North.

I arrived home and after a quick turnaround I welcomed a host of international companies from territories as far afield as Morocco, Israel and Australia. Each company was curious to see the newly emerging genetics from our commercial raspberry breeding programme. With help from many of the JHL team, the day was a great success with some interesting new ideas for collaboration to follow up on.

Less than 24 hours later I was delighted to welcome representatives of the Dutch company - The Greenery - onsite at Invergowrie as current commercial funders of JHL’s recent redcurrant breeding programme.  Knowing the partners well, they were enthusiastic to see the progress being made and were already looking to bring retail partners such as M&S in on the project to raise awareness throughout the supply chain.

Finally, by Friday morning the planned visit by Spanish company Cuna De Platero was postponed on account of Spanish travel disruption thus thankfully allowing to a single day of the week to catch up on all the other missed meetings, emails, actions and updates!

…Just your average weeks work at JHL!