Find out how to grow willow and miscanthus with the Cropper game

Our colleagues at Envirocrops have developed a neat little game that can help you understand how to grow biomass crops. Cropper is a STEM game which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths but don’t think this is simply a boring homework exercise! It’s an engaging and entertaining activity providing education on how to plant a crop of willow or miscanthus and produce enough fuel for a local authority biomass boiler. By playing the game you’ll get to understand:

• All the things you need to do in order to achieve a good crop
• The things to avoid and the best times to do things
• The stuff that can happen to scupper a perfectly good harvest.
• How much it costs, the timescales involved, the production capabilities
• And much more!

There’s spin the wheel games of chance, climate change jeopardies, jumping bunnies, big beetles, and a nice soundtrack to boot. Just like in real life there’s a friendly neighbourhood farmer who you can ask advice of or a consultant who will charge you!

Within 10-20 minutes you’ll go from biomass rookie to biomass expert, and you’ll probably have had a bit of a laugh along the way. Get a good score and you may end up on the Cropper leaderboard.

Go on have a go – it’s great fun.