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Josh Misselbrook

Josh Misselbrook

Agricultural Technician

Josh's job title is Livestock and Field Technician at Rothamsted Research

What I do

I do everything from looking after cows, to driving tractors, to helping out on research projects. For the research projects I could be doing things like putting GPS collars on cows or crop sampling. The whole point of what I do is to help innovate things for farmers in the future. 
Josh on a farm

Hear more about Josh's role by watching the video below...

How I became a technician

A surprising fact
about my job

Rothamsted is a special farm because it is so connected with science. If I look out of the door one way, there is a massive farmyard with livestock, machinery and sheds, but if I look the other way we have water labs, soil labs, herbage labs and everything to do with the science side. My job is to try and bridge science and farming. 

Certain experiments need products supplied – such as fertilisers, products or harvesting – and I do that, along with a couple of the other guys. There are loads of different science projects going on. One of the projects we currently have involves 90 animals all split into three groups in three different sheds that have three similar diets (all eating grass but different types of grass). They also have an automatic feeder – which dispenses little bits of sugar beet for them to eat. Whilst they are eating there are sensors that take samples of methane and carbon dioxide as they are breathing to see if different grass types have different outcomes on how much methane animals are outputting. In total we have 330 cattle and 500 sheep along with arable land. A lot of the grassland is used for experiments. There are slurry experiments going on too and so there is a lot of physical work for that.

A typical day in my
working life

A little more about
my everyday role

What I love most about my job

All of it! I'm mad keen when we do the silage harvest and all the big machines turn up as I'm a massive kid at heart. I just love big shiny tractors! The people I work with are fantastic and the surroundings are brilliant.

The best bits about working as a team

There are seven of us on the farm as well as some office staff. Occasionally we work alone but when we are working with the cows, we all get involved. We have someone who leads on each piece of work, and it is very much a team game. I am the youngest and I think the oldest person is 55. They have a lot more experience than I have, but my strength is the new technology.

The most exciting thing I've achieved so far in my job

I didn’t have any experience with the GPS stuff before I came here but because of the age I am, and always being around computers growing up, I understand it.

The next steps in my career journey

I am not sure, but I don’t want to end up in an office as I like playing on the machinery and running around with the cows!

See Josh in the Technicians: We Make the Difference cinema advert

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