16 April 2009

Horticulture students from the College of Agriculture, Food and Rural Enterprise scored top marks in the Skillbuild competition held recently  in Portadown. The team comprised students Stephen Robinson from Glarryford and Matthew Irwin from Maghera, both are studying the full-time National Diploma in Horticulture at Greenmount Campus.

“It’s been a great 2 day competition; we had to lay paving, a lawn and prepare a dry river bed feature, which was a challenge. The main focus was working as a team and putting into practice the skills we had learnt on the course at Greenmount.” said Matthew Irwin.

Stephen Robinson said “It was really good experience taking part in the competition and there was plenty to be done over the 2 days, pity it rained so much, but then that’s realistic for the job. My favourite bit was laying the paving; you need to get the levels just right otherwise it needs to be re-laid.”

The Greenmount team came first in the competition and received certificates and prize money.

For further details of Horticulture courses, full and part-time, visit our webpages.

Stephen Robinson (Glarryford) and Matthew Irwin (Maghera) take a break from building their Skillbuild garden