16AGRITECHCAT5: Using stress pre-conditioning, novel sensors and AMF to improve yields, resilience and sustainability of raspberry production

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The UK soft fruit industry is a vital part of the UK's rural economy with sales of raspberry estimated at £109M in 2014 (Defra). However, imports have doubled since 2005 and 11kT of berries, worth £59M /year, are imported to satisfy UK consumer demand. UK growers average yields of 13T/ha, although 20T/ha is achievable. A modest 20% increase in marketable yields could raise the value of the UK industry by £15.7M/year, whilst helping to reduce imports. The challenge is to raise yields and reduce waste whilst using resources more sustainably in order to ensure security of future production and to lower the environmental impact of intensive horticulture. The project will develop new opportunities to improve the economic and environmental sustainability of the sector. BerryGardens Growers Ltd (BGG), lead partner in this Agri-Tech Catalyst bid, is the UK's leading berry and stone fruit PO with a market share in excess of 30%. The consortium has expertise in soft fruit agronomy and husbandry, crop physiology and nutrition, fungal physiology, food quality science, environmental monitoring, sensor engineering and fuzzy logic inference systems (FLIS), and a strong track record of delivering and exploiting results of publicly-funded R&D. The proposed scientific and technological innovations have not yet been developed by us or others and represent leading edge applied science and engineering. We will: 1) deploy affinity sensors being developed in IUK 101824 to monitor continuously input and output nutrient concentrations, and use a FLIS to predict substrate (coir) ion concentrations; 2) investigate the potential of using AMF to improve resource acquisition and stress resilience; 3) develop Transient Deficit Irrigation (TDI) as a tool to control cane vigour withour reducing yields, thereby reducing labour and production costs; 4) use stress pre-conditioning to improve crop resilience to abiotic and biotic stresses, 5) deliver automated, real-time precision fertigation control into commercial production using an affinity sensor platform integrated with the Decision Support System (DSS) being developed in IUK 102124. Proof-of-concept of these novel approaches and technologies will be tested in experiments using proprietary raspberry varieties at East Malling Research (EMR). The systems will then be deployed and developed further on BGG grower sites to quantify the potential to deliver greater on-farm fertiliser use efficiency and environmental sustainability, and raise grower margins from higher yields, consistent high quality and increased production efficiency. We anticipate revenue gains to consortium members of c. £8M p.a. arising from adoption of the outputs. The route to market will be via roll-out to BGG's UK soft fruit growers and overseas partners in the first instance, and to other UK and overseas producers of high value horticultural crops where improved farming precision is needed to advance sustainable intensification and deliver economic impact.