LegumeLegacy is a highly interdisciplinary collaboration bringing together experts in ecology, agronomy, plant breeding, animal nutrition and statistics. Two LegumeLegacy Doctoral Researchers were seconded to Cotswold Seeds and FarmED over the summer.

Meret Kaspereit is from Germany, where she studied agricultural sciences with a focus on crop sciences. Her specific interest lies in grassland as the interface between plants and animals, which has led her to do a PhD in Denmark in the Department of Agroecology, as part of the EU-funded Legume Legacy project. This project has different sites across Europe and also Canada, including Cotswold Seeds and FarmED. The aim of Legume Legacy is to optimise farming systems, especially mixed and ruminant-based farming, by integrating grassland mixtures into crop rotations. Meret is researching different mixtures of grasses, legumes, and herbs to optimise yield, forage quality, and also resilience as well as trying to bring the maximum benefit to the follow on crop, decreasing inputs such as nitrogen fertiliser, environmental pollution and costs. Meret spent two weeks gaining practical experience at Cotswold Seeds and FarmED over the summer.

Raniel Valencia completed a bachelor's degree in agriculture in the Philippines, followed by a master's in ruminant nutrition in South Korea. He’s now based at the University of Reading, doing a PhD in animal and dairy and food chain sciences, one of 11 doctoral researchers in the EU and UKRI funded Legume Legacy project. This is a multi-site experiment with eight locations across Europe and Canada, including Cotswold Seeds and FarmED. The project is focused on optimising the multiple benefits of grass, legumes, and herb mixtures in crop rotation by reducing the application of end fertiliser. Each doctoral researcher has a different focus and Raniel is researching ruminant nutrition, quantifying nutrient dynamics in diverse forages both for animal and environmental performance. He will evaluate them based on forage yield, quality, digestibility and methane production. Raniel spent two weeks gaining practical experience at Cotswold Seeds and FarmED over the summer.