Barcham Tree Nursery CPD

The Cambridge team had a CPD day at Barcham Tree Nursery with Keith Sacre (Arboricultral & Urban Forestry Director) to learn about the current and future Bio-Security risks that face the UK’s tree and shrub populations. The risks are very real today due to the high amount of movement of plants, people and materials throughout the world which can all act as vectors for disease and pest transmission.

The purpose of the CPD was to understand these risks and what measures that we as professionals can put in place to ensure that the plants we use are healthy and not likely to cause outbreaks.

The team also learnt about Barcham’s Bio-Security policies and the work they are doing across Europe with other organisations to provide joined up thinking and best practice on how these infections can be slowed down.

A key role for us as Landscape Architects is to review the tree populations in areas we are designing in in order for us to review the species we select to help bolster variety in species and strengthen the local ecosystems.

The end of the day was concluded by a tour of their fantastic nursery site in a pleasant spring drizzle to have a look and chat about their production methods and trees. The team really enjoyed their day at Barcham Trees, we had a lot of questions answered but also a lot more opened up, giving the team food for thought for future work.