Horticultural Services

The John Innes Centre has 8,000 square metres of heated glasshouses and 1,000 square metres of poly tunnels and frames.

The quality of the plants produced in these facilities is very dependent on the professionalism of the horticultural staff that service them. We employ nineteen staff, divided into six teams covering specific areas of the site. The levels of service we offer range from advice to full horticultural support. We provide horticultural training days for first time users of facilities and scientific staff who wish to update their horticultural skills. All horticultural staff are trained to PA1 and PA6 levels of pesticide use. Staff regularly visit local commercial growers and trade shows to keep their knowledge and skills up to date.

Glasshouse facilities

Glasshouses at JIC range in sophistication from basic 'frost free' protection to fully heated houses with lights, thermal screens, and automatic irrigation. The glasshouses are of high quality with computer controlled environments. This allows for the precise control of the plant environment; length of day, temperature, ventilation and thermal screens. Most of the houses have modern roller benching which allows for maximum use of the floor area and ease of plant maintenance. These benches can be watered automatically or by hand, depending on the level of service required by our scientific colleagues.

There are several specialized glasshouses with photoperiod control, to provide shorter or longer days, which are mostly used by growers of wheat and Arabidopsis.

One range of glasshouses are designed to containment level two, specifically for growing genetically modified plants. Another of our glasshouses is used for covered field trials and is used by scientific staff for experiments on drought tolerance, and for 'bulking up' seed that is going into field trials.

Controlled Environment Rooms (CERs)

CERs at John Innes range in sophistication from providing control of the basic environment to rooms that allow control of all environmental parameters. We have seventy rooms on site, which range in growing area from two to eight square metres.