Mark Pedlar began his career in the mid-1960s at Syngenta’s research station in southern England. Here his work entailed the evaluation of novel insecticides, herbicides and plant growth regulators. Both the grain protectant Actellic® and the aphicide Pirimor® came out of this work. During this time he also attained his Higher National Diploma in Biology.
In 1975 he was part of the small Australian group developing both the products Spray.Seed® and Roundup® for the Australian market.
Back in the UK in the late1970s he coordinated the work of ICI’s (now Syngenta’s) network of 12 small research stations across the globe.
>During the 1980s he worked on development and commercialisation of Spray.Seed® and Direct Drilling as well as the grass herbicide Fusilade® in central western NSW. Moving to Adelaide in 1990 he continued to work on Agchem development with ICI and Crop Care and became heavily involved in training both agribusiness staff and farmers in agricultural chemicals. He also became a presenter of Agsafe’s first Stage II accreditation course. In this time he wrote a large proportion of the company’s Ag chemical training material.
Joining Elders in 1997 he managed their agronomic team first in South Australia and then their national team of 130 agronomists. Throughout this time he was heavily involved in staff training.
Since 1997 he has presented both Diploma and Advanced Diploma courses in Commercial Agriculture – specifically in Horticulture and Commercial management.
Mark has a Certificate IV in Training and Assessing and is looking forward to sharing his knowledge and experiences with growers and pesticide users throughout South Australia.