More efficient use of inputs including water, fertilisers and pesticides is vital to the future success of all UK agri-businesses. Although over-irrigation and high fertiliser inputs can lead to excessive vegetative growth, increased disease susceptibility, lower marketable yields, poor organoleptic quality and a short shelf-life, many growers are reluctant to reduce water (and fertiliser) inputs due to the lack of information, suitable management tools and crop monitoring systems. Scientifically-derived fertigation strategies have been developed at East Malling Research that improve resource use efficiency, increase marketable yields and fruit quality and reduce waste during production. Scaling-up this precision fertigation approach so that it can be implemented safely across many hectares of high-value substrate strawberries requires a step change in the detail of on-farm measurement data. The project consortium (BerryGardens Growers Ltd, East Malling Research, Delta-T Devices Ltd, Eden Irrigation Consultancy Ltd and the Technology Research Centre Ltd) will develop new technologies needed to implement, monitor and manage precision fertigation across many hectares of high value soft fruit production. Imaging tools to assess plant health, quantify crop quality and predict marketable yields will be developed and validated against conventional but intensive scientific measures of productivity in commercial strawberry varieties exposed to differing degrees of biotic and abiotic stresses. The benefits to the UK horticulture industry will be improved resource use efficiency, reduced pesticide use, improved yield predictions, extended shelf-life and reduced wastage in store and better fruit quality for consumers.

COVID-19 is creating an existential and widely publicised threat to the otherwise vibrant UK soft fruit sector. The lockdown in March limited access to labour and the UK government launched the Pick for Britain campaign to support the sector as a contingency. However, despite this picking costs have increased, due to the need to train the workforce and some farms have left crops unpicked. Some farms have reported high incidences of COVID-19 outbreaks amongst pickers. There is, therefore, an urgent need to drive labour productivity through automation. This project's objective is to develop and demonstrate a fully automatic blueberry harvesting machine, one of the UK's most important soft fruit crops. The proposed machine is developed from a prior IUK feasibility study (IUK11295). The project will construct a full-scale working machine, including full CAD designs and designed for onward manufacturing. It will be fully electric and include new image analysis systems to optimise crop quality at harvest. The machine removes berries from the bush by the use of innovative shaking systems and can fit inside the small greenhouses and polythene tunnels used by all UK and many EU blueberry producers. Following this project we will have a fully designed machine, which can then be manufactured at scale for widescale deployment by UK growers in the 2021\. This application creates new business opportunities in farm automation but also underpins the economic and environmental sustainability of the soft fruit sector. The industry domain scale is significant; blueberries are now the second largest soft fruit sold in the UK (£337m p.a.). The UK industry has been expanding to meet demand but even so we only have a 7% share of this market. Blueberries are well adapted to the UK summer climate and there is considerable opportunity to grow the UK share. However, the crop requires large amounts of typically migrant labour to pick the fruit, which represents c.40% of production costs. Driving labour productivity in the sector is crucial for a COVID response but also underpins longer term productivity. A more productive UK production base secures environmental sustainability, simply because there will be a reduced requirement to import fruit from overseas producers. The project will be delivered by a well established consortium led by Berry Garden Growers, the UK's largest grower-owned co-operative of soft fruit. In addition the machine will be tested by Lutton Farms, a member of Berry Gardens and the UK's largest grower of blueberries.

The accurate monitoring of pests is vital to profitable crop and livestock production and to human health and optimises pest management through improved interventions. This project will develop a full SmartTraps system for remote autonomous monitoring of Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), an invasive soft and stone fruit pest that has increased the cost of production of soft and stone fruit by 10% in most production regions globally including in the UK. The SmartTraps system will rapidly and accurately identify the near microscopic SWD males and females amongst a myriad of non-target species attracted by a broad-spectrum lure, by machine learning image analysis in compact, autonomous, non-saturating (node) traps. The catch data from networks of individual (node) traps will be transmitted via gateway stations to the cloud, with real time cloud-based data integration accessible on the web and a variety of mobile platforms as an aid to scheduling management treatments for the pest. The feasibility of two of the key core processes in this system, automatically capturing images and identifying them, was demonstrated in Innovate UK project 131787 (completed 30 June 2016), an important technological development and advancement in science. The SmartTraps system will be a significant advancement in pest specific monitoring technology with wide application for numerous pests globally, establishing the UK at the leading edge of this new ground breaking technology with huge international market potential with diverse applications in agriculture, health and the environment.

The UK soft fruit industry has invested heavily in new technologies and marketable yields have increased 3-fold in recent years, but further increases are possible if crop agronomy is optimised. However, 33% of all harvested fruit is wasted each year, due to disorders such as rots, bruising and a poor shelf-life that are exacerbated in changeable weather. A 30% reduction in soft fruit waste would stem UK imports and generate extra income for growers. To achieve this, we will develop a Decision Support System that will enable growers to improve decision making and reduce the impact of changeable weather on crop yield and quality. Growers, retailers and consumers will benefit from more accurate yield forecasts leading to better pricing, greater resource use efficiency leading to cost savings and improved environmental performance, lower waste during production leading to increased tonnage to sell, improved consistency of supply of high quality fresh fruit with an assured shelf-life leading to reduced wastage in store.

Control of soilborne pathogens such as Verticillium wilt has become a major problem in UK horticulture since withdrawal of the broad-spectrum chemical fumigant methyl bromide. A previous project involving the RTO's investigated biofumigant green crops as replacements for methyl bromide. Cultivation and incorporation of biofumigant crops proved difficult, but a brassica seed meal soil amendment and lavender byproducts were highly effective against Verticillium wilt in strawberry. Various isothiocyanates in the former and monoterpenoid compounds in the latter were identified as the active chemicals. This project will exploit this knowledge to develop novel biofumigant products for control of soilborne diseases, particularly Verticillium wilt in strawberry, but with potential application to a much wider range of crops including raspberry, potato and cotton. Firstly, microencapsulation technology will be adapted to develop a slow-release formulation of the biocidal terpenoid compounds in lavender and delivery systems appropriate for use by growers. Secondly, the possibility of producing a novel, pelletised formulation of lavender waste will be investigated as an alternative for organic growers. These and the brassica seed meal product will be evaluated in the laboratory and in several field sites for their efficacy against Verticillium wilt in strawberry, alone and in combination. Their effects on other soil-borne pathogens and non-target organisms will also be determined. The project will provide optimised strategies for using these new products in practice under different levels of pathogen inoculum and various soil moisture conditions.