Alan Wickham, Chairman of the BEST Fruit Discussion Group, was proud to provide the testimonial for agronomist Simon van der Slikke, a former Secretary of the Group and longstanding advisor to many fruit growers across the south of England, as he presented him with the 2016 Raymond Wickham Award.
Born and raised in the Netherlands, Simon came to work for Peter Wheldon in Suffolk before graduating from Utrecht University, and undertook military service before working in Washington State, USA through a connection with French nurseryman, Charles André.
Simon progressed to working with Hoechst and later Bayer, then SEEGRO, and then Pertwee Twyman as an agronomist, before establishing CAPMAN, a computer-based predictor system for crop protection. As a freelance agronomy consultant in his later career Simon visited China of many occasions, and further developed the CAPMAN website in his retirement.
Photo caption: CAPMAN founder and agronomist Simon van der Slikke (left) receives the 2016 Raymond Wickham Award from BEST’s retiring Chairman, Alan Wickham.