A farmer’s son from the north-east scooped a series of awards when he graduated from SRUC.
Ross Learmonth, 20, from Mains of Gight, Ellon, graduated with a First Class Honours degree in Agriculture from SRUC’s Craibstone campus.
He was also the recipient of the Royal Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland Gold medal for the best BSc Agriculture student, the SRUC Trust Prize for the best fourth year student and the Malcolm Castle Memorial Prize for the best Honours dissertation.
No stranger to winning prizes, Mr Learmonth triumphed in last year’s AgriScot Business Skills competition and took the top price in the 2014 Pinnacle Business Management Awards.
During his studies, Mr Learmonth completed a £1,000 scholarship with animal feed company Norvite.
The scholarship at the Oldmeldrum-based firm allowed Mr Learmonth to work alongside the firm’s advisers while completing his dissertation.
For his Honours project, he conducted a feeding trial of a fermentation product normally used with dairy cattle.
At his home farm, he compared the growth rate of beef heifers fed on a standard winter diet with group that were fed the diet plus the fermentation product. The project showed an improved weight gain on heifers fed with the dairy product.
Norvite is currently assessing project proposals from SRUC third year students so it can award a scholarship for next year.
The company’s technical director, David McClelland, said: “The advantages of this collaboration are clear for the student, SRUC, our business and hopefully for the wider industry. The livestock sector faces many challenges but a combination of good science, with sound practical applications, will help to maintain Scotland’s reputation as a world leader in the field of animal science and production.”