CSBP Fertilisers Senior Account Manager Miles Ellery has been recognised with a major academic honour by Curtin University, winning the Most Outstanding Full Time Honours Student in Agriculture award from Curtin University.
Miles received the award from the Curtin University School of Molecular and Life Sciences (MLS) at its annual MLS School Students Awards, held on Wednesday 4 December 2024 at Curtin University’s Bentley Campus.
CSBP has a long-standing relationship with Curtin University and is proud to continue this relationship with an agreement to support the Student Awards for the next five years.
The award was welcome recognition for Mr Ellery’s extensive research that has examined the potential of struvite, a wastewater treatment by-product of magnesium, ammonium and phosphate, as a potential new option for phosphorous (P) fertiliser.
This latest success follows on from academic recognition Miles received earlier this year, when he came second in the annual Young Professionals in Agriculture Forum’s Noel Fitzpatrick Medal for the same research efforts on struvite.
Mr Ellery first joined CSBP in 2021 as an Agricultural Officer on the Field Research team. He now works as CSBP’s Senior Account Manager for Brookton and surrounds and said it was an honour to win such a prestigious academic award.
“We need phosphorous for productive pastures in high-rainfall zones, and my research has assessed whether there are alternatives to superphosphate – this can still be effective on-farm but there can be environmental impacts depending on rainfall events. Also, we investigated whether recycled P can be an option for future sustainable resource management,” Mr Ellery said.
“To have the support of CSBP throughout the project was instrumental in the outcomes, and it’s very pleasing that the work was seen as successful by the academic team who reviewed it.”
Throughout the research journey, Mr Ellery said his studies and on-the-job experience had combined to support his development as an Account Manager and his ability to provide WA growers with leading-edge nutritional advice.
“This experience has given me confidence to use field research results as the basis for recommendations and given all results feed back into CSBP’s NUlogic model, it makes me confident of using that for recommendations based on soil analysis,” he said.
“Showing nutrition trends in the field is important for providing confidence in sustainable, profitable fertiliser strategies. Additionally, we had multiple field days associated with the struvite trial, as well as networking events through university where I was able to discuss results with other researchers and industry participants.
This helped me build a network with diverse opinions and insights on farming and fertiliser strategies, and these ideas can also be passed on to growers for discussion and potential implementation on farm.”
CSBP Fertilisers General Manager Ryan Lamp congratulated Miles on his academic achievements.
“CSBP is committed to providing WA growers with the best advice, and we are proud to acknowledge Miles’ outstanding academic efforts. As a business we are always searching for innovative fertiliser sources and application strategies that can responsibly enhance farm productivity and ultimately boost profitability for WA growers. Miles’ research over recent years has strongly supported this aim, and we are pleased to see the benefits of CSBP’s trial work in Miles’ research outcomes.” he said.