A vital number behind Norfolk’s sophisticated plant experiments has actually mirrored on his 26-year occupation sustaining the world-leading scientific research of the John Innes Centre
Chris Allen has actually retired as area tests group leader at the Dorothea de Winton Field Station at Bawburgh, outdoors Norwich.
The advanced study terminal opened up in 2019 to make it possible for scientists to examine and analyse how genes influence plant growth in a real-world business farming atmosphere.
Mr Allen stated it was a “great place to work”, including: “I’ll miss the people here, I will miss doing all the different jobs and I will miss being here in Bawburgh because, on a nice day, it’s a lovely place to be.”
Chris Allen is retiring after a 26-year career with the John Innes Centre in Norfolk (Image: JIC) The 62-year-old, who lives in Wymondham, said farming was in his blood – as a child he spent summers helping out on his grandparents’ farm and his uncle was a pig farmer in Mildenhall.
Mr Allen joined in the family tradition, training at Easton College before spending the first part of his working life on the land at Great Melton.
He said joining the support staff of the John Innes Centre in 1998 offered a change of working environment – and more variety.
“My work here has been much more varied than regular farming,” he said.
“I don’t have a favourite job, there is nothing I don’t like: drilling, weeding, spraying, bagging, threshing, harvesting, putting up the pea cages and fences around the peas.
“In winter we clean equipment. Whatever it is I have always felt lucky to be involved.
“Thankfully the researchers have always appreciated what we do for them. It makes you feel part of the science here at the John Innes Centre.”
Field trials team leader Chris Allen is retiring after a 26-year career with the John Innes Centre in Norfolk (Image: JIC) To begin with, Mr Allen’s work supporting crop experiments was distributed across a number of the John Innes Centre’s sites.
In the early days, much of his time was planting, hoeing and harvesting a five-acre field of antirrhinum, an important model plant for the study of genetics, at Newfound Farm in Colney – now a housing development.
But he said a major change came with the opening of the field experimentation station at Bawburgh in 2019, bringing labs and field experiments together for the first time in a modern facility that also includes seed stores and meeting rooms.
“Even ten years ago I could never have foreseen a purpose-built building such as this,” stated Mr Allen.
“This building is the big difference that’s happened in the time I’ve been here. It’s a beautiful spot, sometimes bleak in winter – but overall, a beautiful place to work.”
On his retired life, he stated there were extremely couple of points we would certainly not miss out on regarding his life on the land.
“The machinery is getting more technical and we have new tractors which are all buttons and no leavers. I’d be happy to learn over time but generally I’m not a computer sort of person,” he stated.
“Apart from that I can’t think of anything that I won’t miss. I’ve been very lucky.”
