Avalon Fresh Limited

Current tree fruit production applies crop management products uniformly across each orchard, however, orchards exhibit substantial variation across them and between trees. Even neighbouring trees have very different growth and crop loads. Treating all trees uniformly regardless of their size, density, crop load, or health limits yield, is inefficient, an...

RestPoll is a highly transdisciplinary project aiming to provide society with tools to reverse wild pollinator declines and to position Europe as a global leader in pollinator restoration. RestPoll will, together with stakeholders ranging from individual land managers to governments, co-design, evaluate, and refine measures and cross-sectoral approaches t...

Fruit-growing generates over £1 billion for the UK economy annually with apples and pears contributing over £250 million. Forest bug, _Pentatoma rufipes_, is an emerging pest in orchards, probably driven by the withdrawal of pesticides, and the effects of climate change. It causes fruit deformity and pitting which can result in up to 40% losses in product...

This project aims to develop new approaches for increasing resilience of established and newly planted apple orchards. The two main threats to apple production currently are apple canker (_Neonectria ditissima_) and climate change induced severe weather events such as droughts and floods causing tree stress and devastating losses to growers. Apple canker ...

The British apple industry is continuously asked by UK retailers to extend availability; this being achieved by implementing ever more sophisticated storage technologies. Whilst this demand is driven by a brand loyalty to domestic production, the industry is increasingly challenged by imports. In order that primary production of UK apples can be fully uti...

Over 170 k tonnes of apples are stored annually in the UK. In the absence of post-harvest chemicals, losses due to poor quality and disease are estimated at 3-15%. The project will deliver a new engineering solution to reduce losses. By monitoring metabolic status of fruit, SafePod will allow growers to use lower storage O2 concentrations than currently a...

A hand held device that measures spray deposits on crops so that they can be rapidly quantified by spray operators in the field will be developed. This will enable spray operators to determine and optimise sprayer performance e.g. according to crop structure, growth and weather conditions, as well as quality assure spray applications and check for off-tar...