13TSB_AgriFood: Developing innovative tools to manage risks associated with improving resource efficiency and fruit quality in substrate soft fruit

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Globally, agriculture and horticulture accounts for approximately 70% of all blue water abstracted and abstraction rates in many crop production areas are unsustainable. Future water security will be achieved through a combination of more efficient use of water or reduction of water loss and wastage. In the UK, the horticulture and potato industries rely on irrigation water to deliver economic yields of high quality produce with good shelf-life. However, new economically and environmentally sustainable production methods are urgently needed if the provision of a safe, healthy and nutritious food supply is to be achieved against a background of dwindling natural resources. The UK strawberry industry is a vital part of the UK's rural economy, worth £225 million in 2012. Irrigation and the addition of fertilisers (fertigation) is essential to produce the high quality berries demanded by retailers and consumers. Many growers are advised to irrigate to achieve 10-25% run-off to prevent the accumulation of damaging 'salts' within the substrate. 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 suitable management tools and crop monitoring systems. Our aim is to develop and deliver a new innovative technology package that utilises a 'closed loop' PID fertigation control unit and digital and multispectral imaging systems to inform management practices and aid decision-making for commercial strawberry growers. The PID function on the new GP2 Advanced Logger and Controller will be used to impose consistent water deficits on commercial strawberry varieties grown in substrate on table-tops at EMR. Traditional but intensive measurements of physiological responses to water deficits or high ECs will be compared to digital and multispectral imaging approaches to determine their potential to remotely monitor and detect very early physiological responses to rootzone stresses. It will be important to ensure that the novel water-and fertiliser saving fertigation strategy does not alter resilience to yield-depressing powdery mildew and the potential of thermal imaging to detect very early infection in inoculated plants will be determined.The potential of the novel combination of technologies to improve on-farm management decision making will be tested on five commercial strawberry farms in the UK. The GP2 will be linked wirelessly to commercial fertigation rigs at each site using shortwave radio so that the water- and fertiliser-saving fertigation strategies developed using the PID function at EMR can be integrated in to large-scale strawberry production. The components of a novel multi-detector imaging system needed to monitor crop responses under the water- and fertiliser saving regimes to identify any negative effects on plant water relations, photosynthetic performance and powdery mildew susceptibility, to predict Class 1 yields and quantify changes in berry phytonutrient content will be identified. The prototype imaging system will then be tested on commercial farms to determine its potential to provide real-time data to farmers on crop health and productivity. The outputs from this project will improve the economic and environmental sustainability of UK soft fruit production by delivering greater water, fertiliser and pesticide use efficiencies, improved plant health, higher marketable yields, better fruit quality and a reduction in waste.