celebrating 50 years of
organic growing

• home
• weed information
• weed management
• case studies
• weed knowledge
• weed views
• links
• contact us

• Introduction
• Focus groups:
  • Knowledge collation
  • Docks & other perennials
  • Systems studies

Focus Group for:

Knowledge Collation and Dissemination

Group Aims:
A common thread running through discussions at most meetings is knowledge dissemination. It appears there is a gap in communication between the various actors, which needs to be addressed. During the discussions it has become clear that a high value is placed on farmer experience and that there is a strong interest in documenting best practice or 'effective practices'. It was therefore felt useful to convene a focus group in order to address the issue.

The group will attempt to identify ways in which growers want to obtain information and from whom. It will also identify and generate ideas for new technologies/techniques and potentially validate anecdotal and other gathered information in later years. The group will then aim to assist in the dissemination of knowledge gathered during the project. The role of the group will probably have to be refined over the course of the project and will naturally develop as the work proceeds.

Group Role:
• steer direction of work on the theme of Knowledge Collation and Dissemination
• reach a consensus on work to be undertaken over the course of the project
• provide feedback on collation and dissemination activities as well as on trial designs and results
• decide future work programme based on each year’s results
• monitor on-going programmes

Principle issues to be addressed:
• evaluation and collation of 'scientific' knowledge
• evaluation and documentation of best practice – the focus group decided that 'effective practices' and 'diversity' of practice are better terms.
• documentation of historic trends (and timelines from conversion)
• threshold data, economic criteria for judging 'acceptable levels' of weeds

Working Approaches:
• This group will form an important backbone to the whole project, filtering and analysing information gathered, disseminating it and obtaining feedback from participants.
• An important part of the group work will be to collate information from 'scientific' and 'grey' literature on organic weed control.
• The group will ensure other groups gather appropriate information during case studies and help in this process.
• The group will set up a database for information storage and retrieval
• The group will advise on dissemination of information including web-based methods, leaflets and posters.
• The group will start to try and work through existing farmer groups to achieve some of these aims.
 

Group Minutes and Documents:
More details on group remit, the discussions held by the group, including details of the budgets available can be downloaded as pdf files from the knowledge group documents pages. Other documents are available on the Minutes and Reports pages (link).

Top of page | Home | Contact