Worldwide Fruit Limited

Access to new apple varieties is crucial for the future sustainability of the UK apple industry, as new varieties tend to have a significantly higher retail value and therefore offer larger margins for apple growers. However, many of the new cultivars introduced to the UK market are susceptible to apple scab (_Venturia inequalis_), powdery mildew (_Podosp...

COVID-19 and post-Brexit trading uncertainty have placed UK food supply chains under unprecedented pressure. COVID-19 demonstrated the absolute reliance of UK's society on the food system. 70% of the UK's imported food is from the EU, including highly perishable products such as fruit and vegetable which for seasonality reasons cannot be produced in the U...

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 ...

"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 a...

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 consignm...

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 o...

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...

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 suck...

Combatting disease in orchard crops is a major cost. Routine and repeated spraying of entire crops to control disease, adds cost, affects the environment and leads to increased resistance to treatment. Our idea is to develop a vision technology and analysis software to measure the presence of disease and/or insect infestation. The data can then be used to...