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Public description VISION Growing Kent & Medway (GK&M) will deliver an uplift in Kent and Medway's economy through inclusive and innovation-led growth. The cluster focusses on the region's advanced horticulture, fresh produce packaging, food and drink processing industries, and enabling technologies that drive innovation and growth. As the UK prepares to leave the EU, GK&M will establish Kent & Medway as a world-leading region for the climate-smart production and processing of high-value, nutrient-rich foods and plant-based compounds. GEOGRAPHY Kent & Medway is home to the majority of the UK's high-value horticulture, processing and packaging, and a major gateway to global markets. The growth opportunity is significant with building blocks for success in place. However, spending just 1.5% of GDP on R&D, productivity in the region is under-performing because levels of collaborative research and innovation (R&I) lack intensity; entrepreneurial capacity is under-exploited; and there has been a steady erosion in numbers of knowledge-based workers. This is in contrast to other regions where investment to address similar challenges has led to significant prosperity. GK&M will turbo-charge the research, innovation and enterprise environment to boost growth in this critical sector delivering 1,744 additional jobs and £39.3M annual GVA by 2030. Furthermore, the region has some of the widest social inequalities in the UK which is a barrier to achieving prosperity and well-being. GK&M will drive inclusive wealth creation so that untapped human capital can contribute to, and share in the region's prosperity. NETWORK GK&M comprises a world-class consortium of research excellent partners (NIAB EMR, Natural Resources Institute/University of Greenwich, University of Kent); significant Agri-food companies (APS Produce, Berry Gardens Growers, Chapel Down, Gusbourne Estate, Richard Hochfeld Group, Thanet Earth, Worldwide Fruit); an innovative technology integration business that operates across supply chains (Geku Automation); and a world-leading packaging company (Smurfit Kappa). It is backed by strong civic and business support with partners from the Kent & Medway Economic Partnership and Locate in Kent. OBJECTIVES We will stimulate research, innovation and business growth by: People and Spaces: Providing state-of-the-art infrastructure that gives access to innovation, demonstration and research facilities to help businesses and human capital grow. Collaborative Research & Innovation: Raising investment in industry-driven R&I and stimulating the technology commercialisation for climate-smart food production, novel plant compounds, value- addition and waste minimisation. Enterprise: Fostering a vibrant, supportive environment in which businesses can innovate and thrive. Workforce 2030: Developing a strategic framework for upskilling and professionalising the sector.

Tanzania government has recently made a series of policies to support the agriculture development for both demotic and export markets in order to address the local, regional and global demand-supply gap for rice and high-value fruit. However, sustainable production of these crops in Tanzania faces a number of challenges, including the effective management of plant diseases. For instance, rice blast can usually result in 15% of yield losses. We propose to develop innovative biocontrol methods to manage rice blast, the most damaging disease in rice, combining seed-coating with specific biocontrol agents (BCA) with dipping roots in and foliar applications of BCAs. To optimise biocontrol strategies, we will conduct experiments to study the effects of coating seeds or dipping roots in BCAs on root microbial population and induced resistance and to study survival and dispersal of BCAs on the leaf surfaces. A network of field studies will be carried out in Tanzania; training courses will be run to promote the principles of integrated pest management. Adoption of the project results will lead to significant increases in marketable yield for smallholder farmers without excessive input of fungicides.

Climate models predict that yields of major crops in Africa will decline by up to 8% by 2020 and 10-20% by 2050. Higher temperatures, exacerbated by decreasing water availability for irrigation, will become the primary threat to fine and runner bean production. New varieties and improved growing practices that increase resilience to combined stresses are needed. Vegpro (Kenya) Ltd (VP) are a major exporter of fine and runner beans, grown both on commercial farms that employ 8,000 local workers, and on 5,000 outgrower sites across Kenya. In hot dry months (Jan-March, July-Sept), a combination of heat and drought stress can reduce yields by 20-30%, and since current mitigation strategies are inconsistent and ineffective, overall losses can reach 50-60% due to a failure to meet commercial product specifications. Lost revenue to VP is estimated at £8.6M p.a., and for VP's 5,000 outgrowers, losses of 33% of annual income are commonplace. We will develop innovative practical solutions that improve plant productivity by 20% and reduce waste by 40% under combined heat and drought stress, generating additional income for the consortium and VP’s outgrowers of £6.6M p.a.. Project outputs will accelerate sustainable intensification on large- and small-holder farms in a changing climate, increasing local food and job security, and improving well-being and social harmony.

"There is substantive tree-to-tree variability in tree structure (size, density) and crop load and quality in tree fruit orchards which are the major causes of less than optimal, often poor, overall yield and quality. Previous work in Innovate UK project 101405 showed that tree-to-tree variability in yield ranged from 2-3 fold in the six most productive and uniform apple orchards in the UK, with much greater variability in poorer orchards. Larger scale within-orchard variability and inter-annual bienniality also contribute to poor performance. In this project, we shall develop precision dosing orchard foliar spraying system to improve the uniformity of orchards and greatly increase their economic performance, using apple as an exemplar. Current practice is to spray whole orchards at the same dose regardless of tree structure or crop load. The equipment will apply precision doses according to need to optimise performance. The performance of poorer performing trees will be increased towards that of the best and the tendency for out of sync tree-to-tree biennial bearing minimised. IP will be protected and the system sold internationally, creating a new substantive UK business contributing to the UK economy. The technology will have application for the wide range of spray applications to tree fruits for crop protection and crop management worldwide. The precision orchard mapping technologies will have additional wide application for other methods of crop management and Agri Decision Support Systems (AgriDSS) worldwide. This new technology will have substantive impacts on the UK apple industry making a step change in productivity and competitiveness and allowing the UK industry to increase production. Keywords: Precision orchard spraying, tree fruit production, apple production, crop scanning and mapping, Decision Support System"

"The UK fruit industry is under continual pressure from introduction of non-native pests and diseases. Spotted wing drosophila (SWD), _Drosophila suzukii_, was first detected in the UK in 2013 and populations have increased year-on-year since then. The pest lays eggs in fruit before ripening and the larvae destroy the fruit from the inside, so the damage is only detectable after harvest. Fruits attacked in the UK include raspberry, strawberry, blueberry, blackberry, cherry and grapes and 25-100% of strawberry and cherry crops were lost during 2016\. The value of UK horticulture production is £400 m pa, and an estimated £20-30 m pa is currently spent on controlling the pest. Equivalent losses and costs are experienced in the US and other European countries where SWD has established. Best practice approaches include rigorous removal and destruction of waste fruit and use of insect mesh barriers. These are costly and growers still revert to routine pesticide applications to prevent economic damage. This strategy is not sustainable. Consumers increasingly demand produce free of insecticide residues and it is vital to prevent emergence of insecticide resistance in the pest. Furthermore, the need to use chemical insecticides against SWD is compromising the impressive programmes of integrated pest management that growers have developed against other pests and diseases. This research project will provide the basis for development of new products for control of SWD in a sustainable manner, compatible with integrated pest management. The product will use novel lures to attract the flies to a device which infects them with a new strain of fungus which is highly pathogenic to the flies but not to other organisms. The infected flies are released and the fungus can be passed on to other flies before killing the infected individuals, thus greatly enhancing the impact of the initial infection in a way not possible with other products. The commercial partners are the leading UK producer of biorational pest control agents and the UK's foremost berry and stone fruit production and marketing group. The academic partners are two research institutes with long experience in research on insect attractants and management of SWD. This will ensure timely delivery of research outputs which are suitable for commercial production and acceptable to growers. The research will provide the basis for development of at least three new products with worldwide market potential and their use will increase productivity and profitability of the UK horticulture industry."

"Spray application of agrochemicals is essential to agriculture and it is vital that it is performed accurately and safely yet hitherto spray operators have had no means of rapidly quantifying spray deposits and coverage in the field. In Innovate UK project 101820, which ended on 30 Sept 2017, we developed a new prototype technology that enables spray operators, for the first time, to quantify spray deposit coverage and variability on different parts of the target crop. We used the device to evaluate commercial spray applications in a diverse range of crops, commonly identifying deficiencies for correction by sprayer adjustment. A number of successful case studies were generated that demonstrated the potential of the new technology with immediate benefits to growers. However, the project also identified a number of outstanding technical issues that needed to be resolved before commercialization could be considered. The aim of this project will be to resolve these issues and thus de-risk the future development of a commercial product. As part of the project IP will developed and protected and an internationally focussed exploitation plan will be refined, which, based on experience to date, is likely to provide significant sales over the coming years. Keywords: crops, spray deposits"

Soil is one of the three major natural resources essential for agricultural productivity, with the other two being air and water. Soil should be teeming with life---especially microbial life---but intensive farming practices such as frequent ploughing, the removal of crop wastes and the use of heavy machinery have degraded soils throughout the world, and the associated costs of this degradation are estimated to be $6.3--10.6 trillion. As farmer's profits are being squeezed there is considerable interest within the farming community in monitoring long-term changes in the health of their soils based on the way they farm their land. To correctly manage soil health, farmers need reliable information on the health of their soils. For this they need to be able to measure the chemical, physical, and biological properties of soil. However, farmers currently have no, or very few tools they can use to measure the biological properties of their soils. For example, current methods to assess the biological properties rely on measuring the CO2 content of soil samples, which does not provide information on the range of microbes present in the soil. Other promising techniques such as next generation DNA sequencing of soil microbes are too expensive, require experts, and provide information that is difficult to analyse (the exact roles of the vast majority of different microbial species present in a soil sample are currently unknown). In addition to CO2, microbes also release other gases called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Despite the useful information VOCs provide on soil life, they are currently not utilized by farmers to assess soil health because the equipment to measure soil VOCs is expensive, laboratory-based, and requires trained operators. This project proposes the development of a portable, low-cost VOC sensor to overcome those constraints. The proposed sensor that can be connected to a smart phone or laptop for powerful data analysis in a cloud-based software package and will thus complement existing soil nutrient testing practiced by farmers. Coupled with visual assessments for physical properties the proposed sensor will enable farmers to make soil health assessments themselves. P.E.S. Technologies, a plastic electronics start-up, and NIAB-EMR, a horticultural research transfer organisation, propose a joint technical feasibility study to develop a tool for the detection of soil VOC profiles. Once validated for soil health testing, the same sensor architecture could be adapted for applications in healthcare, food processing, waste management and remediation of contaminated land.

There is increasing consumer and retailer demand for high-quality UK-grown premium dessert apples, and this will increase further post-BREXIT as retailers favour British produce. However, achieving consistent high quality across variable growing seasons is difficult, and premium varieties are susceptible to storage disorders that can render whole consignments unmarketable, leading to losses of £2.5-8.3Mp.a. In some years, losses of 30% present a serious reputational risk and jeopardise future production and marketing strategies. The pre-harvest factors that lower eating quality and predispose fruit to storage disorders are not yet known, but research has shown that targeted nutrition management can elevate antioxidants in apple tissue that help to mitigate against the development of disorders. However, little is known of the changes in fruit biochemical composition during the growing season that predispose fruit towards storage disorders, and so the development of mitigation strategies has been restricted to adjusting post-harvest, high cost, high stringency storage conditions. New technologies that provide assurance of quality after long-term storage will help to extend the selling season of UK-grown apples and drive import substitution. This project will develop a low-cost, portable vision system, incorporating mathematical models and algorithms to deliver a DSS for growers to inform in-season mitigation strategies and optimum picking times, to identify ‘at risk’ crops pre-harvest, to inform storage and marketing strategies, and to enhance the production, quality and reputation of premium varieties in the UK and globally.

The world population is expected to grow to over 9 billion people by 20401 and food production will need to increase by more than 50% to cope with the expected demand. Improving yields from existing agricultural surface is critical to deliver this deficit as land suitable for conversion to agriculture is dwindling. Crop loss during storage is a significant loss-route in the UK and internationally. By leveraging on our expertise in Printed electronics, CDT Ltd and the University of Manchester will collaborate with NIAB to explore the feasibility of using a low-cost printed electronics based sensor array for the detection of early onset of disease in stored onion crops allowing action to be taken to prevent loss. This cross-sector team will develop methodologies to assess the technical and market viability of this application and to identify the end-user requirements for the technology.

UK raspberry production was worth £109M in 2014, but a further 11KT of berries, worth £59M, are imported each year. A 20% increase in the 14KT of fruit produced p.a. in the UK could be expected to reduce imports by 2.8KT, and raise the value of the UK industry by £15.7M p.a.. However, improved on- farm management of water and fertiliser inputs is needed to optimise productivity; currently, excessive fertigation to substrate-grown raspberry result in vigorous cane growth which makes crop management difficult and harvesting costly. Nutrient leaching also poses a risk to groundwater quality. We will use novel affinity sensors combined with fuzzy logic to automatically adjust nutrient inputs to match plant demand in real time, reduce fertiliser losses to the environment and improve berry quality. Stress preconditioning and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) will be used to raise marketable yields, improve resource use and acquisition, and increase crop resilience to stresses.

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.

Reducing fungal fruit rot is a priority in strawberry production in the UK; annual economic losses due to fungal rotting are usually between £30 to £60M. Rot is mainly caused by Botrytis cinerea, Mucor spp. and Rhizopus spp., with their relative prevalence varying over time and growing site. Most strawberry production in the UK is under protection where the risk of fungal rot largely depends on the pathogen inoculum strength, and availability of susceptible tissues. Accurate risk prediction, and hence effective control of fruit rotting, is hampered by the difficulties in accurate and fast quantification of inoculum strength. This project will develop a device for semi-automatic quantification of multiple airborne strawberry pathogens and establish the relationship of both pre- and post-harvest rot risks with the quantified inoculum level. This will extend the marketable shelf life of individual strawberry lots and reduce fruit waste due to fungal rotting.

Contamination of water supplies due to pesticide run-off is a major problem in Brazil. This is particularly severe in cotton-growing areas because of the large amounts of pesticide used against insect pests such as the boll weevil. Furthermore, the cost of pesticides required has lead to a halving of the area of cotton grown with a consequent loss of income for farmers, particularly in the poorer North East of the country. This project brings together UK and Brazilian commercial and academic partners with the aim of developing a lure-and-kill technology for control of boll weevil and other pests. This contains a pheromone to attract specifically the target pest and a low loading of insecticide or biopesticide to kill it. The devices will be constructed of novel biodegradable polymers so that they are simple and cheap to manufacture and deploy and do not need to be collected in at the end of the season. The devices will be field tested in Brazil and registered by the Brazilian partners. Their use should greatly reduce the amount of insecticide applied to cotton and give reduced contamination of groundwater, better and cheaper pest control and improved livelihoods for cotton growers.

Delivering consistent supplies of high quality fresh produce is a significant challenge for Kenya’s fresh veg. growers. Yields of beans range from 5 to 50T/ha and up to 40% of produce is of poor quality, due to ineffective irrigation and soil-borne diseases. A 12% increase in average yield and a 20% reduction in waste would raise Class 1 yields by 978T/year; this would generate an extra £3.2M/year, increase food security and improve soil management practices. We will: 1) Develop irrigation scheduling tools to improve consistency of cropping; 2) Identify effects of biocontrol agents on soil pathogens and soil microbiome 3) Determine effects of soil water availability on incidence and severity soil pathogens and efficacy of biocontrol agents; 4) Develop integrated control measures to improve Class 1 yields, quality and shelf-life; 5) Promote benefits of precision irrigation and biocontrol at workshops/on-farm demos; 6) Assess social and economic impacts of outputs and implement sustainability improvement plans.

Year round UK glasshouse production of tomatoes for supermarkets is highly intensive. Although this production is highly controlled it is still difficult to accurately predict picking yields which has an impact on the food supply chain. This inaccuracy requires businesses to continually react to this inefficacy. Over-prediction results in costly imports, whilst under-prediction incurs financial losses from the disposal of surplus fruit. There is considerable potential to reduce these losses and increase the proportion of UK sales by improving the accuracy of yield forecasts. We will develop an imaging system, TomVision, and mathematical models, PredictTomPro, to more accurately predict weekly yields and deliver significant savings in import costs and waste. Our aim is to predict weekly harvests to 10% of actual, that will generate £30K/ha extra income p.a. for producers and for the developers the anticipated sales of these tools of £1.3M/£11.3M/£26M (UK/EU/W) after 5 years.

The global market for horticultural greenhouse films is £1.4bn per annum and is forecast to grow by 6% p.a. until at least 2020. BPI sales of horticulture greenhouse materials are in the order of £21m p.a.; this represents a global market share of 1.6%. The BPI target growth is 15% per annum for the 5 years post project, on this basis BPI will see sales growth of £37m over the year 5 period (after deducting general market growth). On this basis, the BPI global market share would increase to 2.1% by the end of the period. This is a modest market share growth expectation. Assuming a project cost of £1.4m this would represents a sales to project cost gearing ratio of 26:1. Sales are likely to be significant as the sector is now highly commoditised and the novel materials will deliver clear and substantial benefits to growers, including yield (c. +10%) and crop quality increases, as well the potential to reduce manual labour (reduced ventilation of fruit tunnels via IR reflection). Any means to reduce the reliance on manual labour will be a significant benefit to growers. A significant benefit of driving yield and quality via greenhouse films is that the environmental impacts are almost entirely passive; in fact increasing yield per unit area can reduce environmental impacts as fewer chemicals are required per unit area, and a lower tonnage of film per unit of production. There will also be highly significant benefits to Schulmans in terms of master batch sales. Haygrove Tunnels will benefit in terms of the added value from film and novel tunnel sales. As well as production benefits, Berry Gardens and Finlay’s will benefit from having a 3 year lead on the development of novel technology which could underpin greenhouse productions systems for a considerable time in the future. There may be significant opportunities to extend patent developments into other industrial sectors, there is considerable interest in IR reflective materials for building heat control (reducing air conditioning loads).

General semiochemical repellents are widely used for protecting humans and livestock from attacks by arthropod pests in developing and developed countries, but they have been little explored or used for crop protection. The aim of this project is to prove the concept that volatile, repellent chemicals can be used to reduce the damage caused to agricultural crops by a range of insect pests. This could provide a widely-applicable new approach to management of crop pests that reduces the use of conventional pesticides and is compatible with integrated pest management and sustainable agricultural intensification. The approach is applicable in both developed and developing countries. The project will be a collaboration between a UK SME, Russell IPM, two UK research institutes, East Malling Research and the Natural Resources Institute, and an SME, Russell IPM Bangladesh and Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) in Bangladesh

The UK fruit industry is under continual pressure from the introductions of non-native pests and diseases. This project will aim to better monitoring and time pesticide application against a highly damaging soft and stone fruit pest, Drosophila suzukii. It will achieve this by developing a more species specific attractant for future use in monitoring traps and, eventually, control technologies.

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.

The objective is to determine whether plasma treatments, particularly those using cold atmospheric plasma, can improve the health and quality of crops by improving seedling emergence, vigour, disease control, as well as biochemical reactivity. If successful, this would lead to healthier crops whilst reducing the chemical burden on the environment. Manipulating the properties of seeds with a non-invasive, physical process could have far-reaching effects on crop production. More vigorous seedlings, able to withstand biotic and abiotic stresses such as disease, pests and drought, could reduce risk in crop production and result in increased productivity and resilience.

The project will investigate the technical and commercial feasibility of developing an innovative pollination control bag to improve crop breeding programmes used for three important agricultural crops: sugar beet, wheat and Miscanthus. Existing technologies are unfit for purpose and their use can be detremental to plant health and seed yield, and increase disease incidence and expense. A range of materials (films and nonwoven), fibre technologies and techniques will be investigated and trialled with academic and commercial breeders with the aim of developing the next generation of pollination control bags to improve breeding outcomes, reduce losses caused by poor temperature and humidity control within the bag, and increase seed yield. This will reduce costs for plant breeders and accelerate the rate at which new commercial crop varieties (with improved yields, drought, disease or pest resistance, and higher crop quality), can be discovered and brought to market.

The realisation of optimal yield and quality from a crop is often dependent upon a complex interaction between the environment and the plant genotype. In the UK and across Europe growers are increasingly producing fruit crops such as strawberries in substrates, rather than in soil and in glasshouses and polytunnels rather than the open field. Despite this opportunitity for cultivars tailored to this more controlled environment many breeding programmes still select and trial new varieties in the open field in soil. In this project the basis of key traits for optimate soil-less production will be investigated along with those yielding maximum fruit quality in this more controlled environment. Genetic markers will be developed for exploitaion by breeders and by working with agronomists, substrate producers and supermarkets valuable knowledge and practical techniques for optimum production of new cultivars will be gathered to benefit UK growers of stawberries under protection.

This project will provide UK oat producers with world leading agronomic ‘tools’ to maximise grower returns and capitalise on the increasing demand for food grade oats. The objectives are 1) Develop and validate algorithms for translating visual / spectral sensor data from Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) into quantifiable crop parameters to enable growers to optimise management for yield and quality across fields; 2) develop an Oat Crop Model and associated decision support tools; 3) develop an Oat Growth Guide which will provide a reference to assess crops status against key development bench-marks. Focused dissemination of these innovative tools will increase average yields by at least 1t/ha, contribute to sustainable intensification, reduce supply risk for millers, reduce imports, catalyse product innovation & consumer access to healthy grains and stimulate milled product export.

The food retail industry is experiencing increasing demand from consumers for UK grown fresh produce and would like to substitute imports with home produce. The demand for home grown plums cannot currently be met due to unreliable and inefficient cropping systems. This collaborative project will develop integrated new technologies that will address the major existing production problems and limitations for fresh plums. The sustainable intensification of this horticultural crop will be achieved through integration of a high-density growing system with new rootstocks, varieties and manipulation of tree architecture for increased yield, coupled with protected cropping regimes and component technologies that will regulate crop load, fruit ripening and give significant season extension. This intensive and profitable growing system will enable UK growers to confidently invest in plum production, delivering substantial economic impact (>£10 m/yr) to the UK horticulture industry.

This project addresses the effects of climate change in the UK on blackcurrant production, where the trend towards warmer winters has adversely affected dormancy break and subsequent crop yields and quality, substantially reducing profitability. The use of existing dormancy-breaking treatments, developed for other perennial crops, will be assessed for their efficacy in blackcurrant, their use optimised, and their mode of action evaluated. Best practice guidelines for growers will be developed. Additionally, models predicting responses to the chilling environment for different varieties will be established, and this information will be used to direct the use of dormancy-breaking treatments to improve yield and quality.

This project will investigate the feasibility of developing an autonomous SmartTraps system for remotely monitoring adult Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD), an invasive fruit pest. The feasibility of rapidly and accurately identifying the near microscopic Spotted Wing Drosophila males and females by image analysis in a compact, autonomous, non-saturating trap will be determined as the key preliminary step and technological challenge. Other key processes that will need to be developed for a full system beyond a successful outcome of this feasibility study include between trap communication, cloud based data aggregation and analysis, and web and app-based tools to integrate summary data from traps in order to provide decision support for growers. The trap will allow much closer and more reliable monitoring of SWD, and will be a significant advancement in pest specific monitoring technology which will have wide application for numerous pests globally.

The production of high quality protein with a low carbon footprint is essential to the future global food security. Mycoprotein is a healthy alternative to meat and has a lower carbon footprint than chicken production. Through this project, this will be improved still further, by reducing the dependence on a single type of sugar, utilised during the production process. Ultimately this may allow the production of mycoprotein to be carried out using other types of sugars, that the naturally occuring fungus used for the production of Quorn can utilise for production of high quality protein. This means that the production of Quorn will be less affected by price-spikes on global food markets and also will allow Quorn production to further reduce carbon emissions during production, by creating better supply chains leading up to production.

This proposal focuses on increasing the yield and ensuring fruit supply from substrate strawberry production. To avoid soil borne diseases, nearly 40% of strawberry production is grown in soil-less substrate under protection where nutrient and water are better controlled according to the crop requirement. This proposal will develop new biological products (arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi – AMF, and plant growth promoting rhizobacteria – PGPR) to amend the substrate in order to improve resource use efficiecny, as one of key drivers in the delivery of sustainable intensive agriculture. The present proposal investigates whether application of AMF and PGPR products in commercial substrates will result in increased resource use efficiency, fruit quality, and tolerance to powdery mildew over different combinations of cultivars and substrate types.

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-target contamination. Spray deposits from best practice spray applications will be benchmarked in a wide range of UK horticultural crops at different growth stages. Business opportunities are 1) sales of the device to the mass market of spray operators, consultants and researchers in the UK then worldwide 2) improving sprayer performance for the UK producer and marketing organisation partners in the project and whose grower members are leading UK horticultural producers. They will set new standards of best practice for spraying UK horticultural crops, and this new technology will readily transfer throughout agriculture and horticulture.

This project aims to develop a new form of non-invasive, real-time quality control system to improve production efficiency in agrifood industries. A new type of optical based analsyer which will be able to differentiate between healthy fruit, and fruit with internal disorders such as rot or latent infection, will be developed. The proposed instrument will be easily integrated into exisiting packaging line systems and aims to provide early detection of infected or spoiled fruit, such that this fruit can be marketed early or discarded to prevent the spread of further infection. Overall, this type of quality control with result in a new method of crop management, increasing prodution efficiency and yields, and therefore benefiting the UK and worldwide markets.

Application of correct amounts of water to the mushroom crop at suitable intervals is essential in obtaining high yields and quality, and avoiding bacterial blotch disease. Although automated irrigation systems can apply known volumes of water to the surface ‘casing’ layer, the decision to apply water is subjective, depending on visual observation of the crop and ‘feel’ of the casing, while the moisture status of the underlying compost remains unknown. This three year project will be based at an industry leading mushroom production unit, G’s May Farm in Cambridgeshire. The project will utilise new electronic matric potential sensors from Delta-T Devices which operate in high moisture substrates and will introduce precise, sensor controlled irrigation to the two substrate layers in mushroom cultivation. This will lead to improved yields of higher quality mushrooms, with less crop and water wastage compared with subjective watering systems involving human operator judgement and error. East Malling Research will provide expertise to the project in irrigation technology and mushroom cropping, quality and disease control.

The project aims to develop an innovative control system for a field crop sprayer that is able to deliver accurate doses across a field with modern, large-scale equipment operating at high work rates. The work will involve quantifying the limitations in current technology, designing, developing and implementing a new control system that involves integrating state-of-the-art hardware with innovative software strategies, testing the system performance and validating the benefits, and integrating with farm management software. The project is led by a UK sprayer manufacturer who aims to increase their ability to compete in a world market, has a research partner with expertise in pesticide application, sprayer control and precision agriculture who can provide independent testing and validation and dissemination of results, and a manufacturer of farm management software to ensure integration of the system to maximise uptake. A successful project will ensure major improvements in the accuracy of pesticide delivery, increasing the efficiency of the operation, maximising the performance of plant protection products and reducing environmental impacts.

The EWCROP project will demonstrate an innovative, pesticide free crop treatment using electrolysed water (EW) to reduce disease & pest burdens on high value crops, lowering the use of various inputs and energy and improving crop yields. This is designed to provide a new non-polluting, carbon and water reducing mechanism to ensure high crop yields even as traditional pesticides are being withdrawn due to EU legislation or becoming ineffective due to pathogen resistance. EWCROP will demonstrate these benefits in high value horticultural crops such as tomatoes, lettuce and potatoes, but its benefits will ultimately extend to a broad range of glasshouse and field grown crops. The project will support the whole UK agri-food industry, protecting some of the 3.7 million jobs and £91B GVA created by this sector. The project will involve partners who are leaders in building and testing an EW production and delivery system combining novel EW production, spray delivery systems and scientifically managed crop experiments & trials. As well as building the EW delivery system, the EWCROP project will evaluate and optimise its efficacy on a variety of crop and pathogen species.

Information describing potato crop canopy development is a key measurement for in-season crop management, irrigation scheduling and final yield forecasting. Output from these systems are used to optimise inputs (e.g. water), maximise crop value and provide data to the downstream processing chain. Traditional, manual methods, of collecting groundcover are labour intensive and provide little information about the spatial variability of crop development. Satellite observations can provide insight into spatial variability but can be temporaly limited and often require collection of expensive ground truthuing data. This project aims to combine low-cost ground truthing data, crowd-sourced via a smart phone app, with satellite radar data, that can meet the temporal resolution required for reliable results in potato crop management systems. This will create fit for purpose data which can be used to improve and expand the accuracy and reliability of potato crop management systems.

Strawberries contribute to a nutritious and healthy diet and are an important UK crop. Increasing restrictions in the type and frequency of chemical controls mean that existing varieties will soon be unsuitable for sustainable production in the soil. This project will develop technologies to aid the measurement of below-ground traits controlling natural plant resistance to nematodes, which in combination with a fungal pathogen called Verticillium dahliae (the causative agent of a wilting disease) cause major crop losses. Novel measurement techniques will be developed, which will allow the identification of wilt and nematode resistance genes that UK breeding programmes can harness to improve new varieties. Furthermore, this novel trait measurement system can be applied to other crop breeding programmes (along with other applications) to enhance the efficiency of trait meaurement on large plant populations.

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.

The UK is not self sufficient in apples, even during the high season, providing only one third of our own consumption, with the shortfall made up by imports. Our consortium, representing one third of UK growers, beieves that, by standardising best-practice orchard management, and with a strategic approach to helping breed new cultivars, we could gear up our orchards to take back at least 100,000T of lost import volume, worth £50M. This project develops a novel vision based crop measurement technology for apple growers, capable of measuring commercially relevant phenotype traits in the field and providing quantified data to help breeders accelerate their programmes for new elite cultivars. The detailed data captured by tree over the season and between seasons will be correlated with environmental factors and the apple genome. It will provide growers the opportunity to meet three important industry objectives: To better manage the quality and yield of their crops through a precision horticulture approach; to strategically increase cropping intensity via improved strategic orchard management knowledge; and to inform breeders of the desired routes for the accelerated development of new elite cultivars, providing quantified information on the commercially important traits at phenotype level. This new technology will allow the UK to lead the world in the precision management and development of pome crops, and help increase production capacity by up to 50% from the current acreage.

Plums and cherries are among the favourite fruits of the consumer, but currently much of the demand is met by imported fruit. With new plum and cherry varieties and new production techniques the UK industry has the potential to increase production. However, post-harvest losses can be significant due to fungal rots and rapid loss of fruit quality. The objective of this project is to develop improved methods of managing the fruit post-harvest based on cold storage and the use of post-harvest biocontrol treatments to minimise losses due to fungal rots and to maintain fruit quality. These new control strategies post-harvest will enable growers and distributors to reduce fruit waste, extend product shelf-life, extend the marketing period and provide UK-consumers with first quality, locally produced plums and cherries for longer.

A bioactive predator refuge will be developed for use in apple and pear orchards. It will stabilise and enhance populations of natural predators, especially earwigs, which regulate key pests so that pesticide sprays are needed less frequently. Waste and extensive losses in yield and quality both pre- and post-harvest and during processing due to pear sucker, codling moth and aphids, the most damaging pests of apple and pear crops, will be reduced. Earwigs are voracious predators with a high prey consumption rate. Populations vary greatly between orchards and in many orchards they are absent because of inadequate food and shelter. The device will provide these resources at critical times. The earwig's aggregation pheromone will be identified and provided to ensure rapid and sustained occupancy. Encouraging these important natural enemies will help protect the environment.

UK apple orchards vary greatly in their productivity and profitability mainly due to management of the tree structure in the orchard. The best orchards performing almost twice as well as the average, producing higher yields of optimally sized and quality fruit resulting in much lower levels of wastage post farm gate. To address this waste issue we plan to develop a highly innovative technology package to map and record the tree systems used by producers. The output will enable producers to manipulate their tree management to help maximise the economic return of their crops and therefore make their product more competive and more available in the marketplace. Equipment and methods for doing this, will be based on our previous work developing the PACE (Pesticide dose Adjustment to the Crop Environment) scheme. We believe this highly innovative technology will position the UK pipfruit industry at the forefront of precision farming technologies within pipfruit production globally.

Endophytes are naturally occurring fungi or bacteria that live within a very wide range of plants, including grasses. They have a symbiotic relationship with the host plant, drawing nutrient from the host while providing a degree of protection to the plant from diseases and pests. Grass endophytes are fungi which spend their entire life cycle within their grass host. They confer advantages for pasture productivity, including protection against pests and abiotic stress factors. New strains of endophyte have been identified and widely are used in temperate grassland production, in the southern hemisphere, to provide protection against pests and diseases that would otherwise require the use of pesticides. Animal protein (meat and milk) from grass is an environmentally desirable production system provided that forage is available at critical times and the costs of re-seeding provide reliable economic returns. This project will examine for the first time newly developed safe endophyte strains in the UK environment, and characterise their ability to enhance forage grass productivity under different stresses and lower input systems. The aim is to provide a route to commercialisation through demonstration of safety and benefit of endophyte.

When price and availability of imported soya protein was not an issue, UK production of soya protein was not economically viable. However the economics for vegetable protein have recently changed and soya production for forage is successfully grown in the US & S.Africa which could be adapted to enable UK production. We are evaluating non-GM soya lines for whole-crop forage harvesting in the UK thus allowing issues relating to late maturity, yield and harvesting to be overcome in more marginal livestock areas. Anti nutritional problems will be avoided, facilitating direct production and use on-farm with reduced transport/processing costs. We aim to provide growers with guidelines for production of Soya in th UK, as well as seed and inoculant for UK farmers to exploit this valuable protein source and residual Nitrogen. Our project is highly innovative and will develop new varieties for UK conditions

PROJECT TITLE: Improving the availability of UK sourced protein feed through new faba bean varieties, production and utilisation systems Summary: The shortfall in sustainable protein produced in the UK and the EU creates an opportunity to evaluate and improve an established crop with previously untapped potential. The high protein content and acceptability of faba beans by some, but not all, of the feed industry offers the opportunity of market expansion for home produced legumes through advanced feeding trials. Faba beans are self sufficient in nitrogen and leave residual N for following crops, so contributing to environmental sustainability. However, the yield potential, and thus protein yield, of faba beans is seldom maximised. This project will establish the effects of advanced agronomy on faba bean output, and address the issue of yield stability by genetic selection and improved breeding processes to generate new varieties of faba bean optimised for feed markets

This project will utilise modern marker assisted breeding methods to develop lines of oat resistant to crown rust and mildew fungal diseases safeguarding the use of this important crop. Innovative aspects include the genetic dissection of resistance mechanisms identified in certain oat genotypes and the use of syntenic relationships with a model plant species to identify genes and markers associated with resistance. Following introgression of the resistance genes into elite germplasm the resulting lines will be tested in the field for pathogen resistance and agronomic performance. The project addresses concerns raised by 91/414/EEC that inexpensive triazole fungicides currently used in oats will be deregistered. Development of genetic resistance offers the only economically viable solution in oats to prevent losses in crop yield and quality due to these diseases which are becoming more prevalent in the UK due to global climate change. Economic benefits include the maintenance and enhancement of the UK oat area, a crop with significant benefits to producers of healthy food products, animal feed manufacturers and industrial processors, while the use of environmentally damaging fungicides will be rendered unnecessary. The project brings together the major UK company producing and marketing oat seed (Senova Ltd), the major UK institute engaged in arable crop evaluation and crop pathology (NIAB), the major UK oat breeding and genetics research organisation (IBERS, Aberystwyth) and a large farmer member based organisation engaged in crop evaluation and technology transfer (TAG) in a consortium which has the skills and commercial experience to deliver the project outcomes.

PROJECT TITLE: Application of SNP genotyping and rapid screening procedures to enable commercialisation of faba bean varieties with stem nematode resistance Summary: Stem nematode, Ditylenchus dipsaci, is a major pest of Vicia faba beans in the UK. It reduces yield and quality, and its persistence in soil imposes a major constraint on faba production. Sources of resistances are known in faba bean germplasm, yet there are no resistant varieties available appropriate for the UK and its markets. Recent developments in the generation of molecular markers in faba bean, and improvements in phenotypic screens for nematode resistance provide an opportunity for the application of biotechnological approaches to the development of resistant varieties. The objectives of this project are to identify markers linked to stem nematode resistance and to validate their use in breeding a new generation of faba bean varieties that are well-adapted, high-yielding and nematode resistant.

Molecular Improvement of Disease Resistance in Barley (MIDRIB) describes the development and application of novel Genomic Selection technology for breeding new varieties. The primary aim is to develop new competitive varieties for the UK, with increased polygenic disease resistance, which will allow reductions in pesticide applications. The approach will develop innovative statistical models linking phenotypic data with high density molecular SNP marker analysis. The partners are Limagrain, NIAB, UCL and The James Hutton Institute. MIDRIB is a 5 year project.

The project aims to convert waste product from seafood processing into valuable materials for novel industrial applications. The Consortium researches on the development of worldwide-sourced and UK-manufactured high performance functional materials for use in the food, agricultural and drilling sectors by processing chitosan, a biopolymer from crustacean waste. A novel low environmental impact process for obtaining chitosan and a range of functional materials based on derivatisation of the biopolymer is being developed. The demographic trend towards smaller households in the UK means that there is rapid growth in packaging that offers fresh food in a consumer-ready state. Increasing safety and shelf-life of highly perishable food is very important for producers and consumers and presents a major business opportunity, that is addressed in this project. The agricultural applications of the functional material demonstrate clear technical advantages over competing materials, because it allows the reduction of chemical and irrigation inputs. The project is funded by the Technology Strategy Board and the Consortium brings together leading companies in polymer, food, agricultural and drilling industries along with academic institutions with the aim to modify the processing of crustacean shells (using existing waste) and provide a range of new bio-based materials.