UK: Berry Gardens- advances in technology
"We have a market leading berry offer and the introduction of improved new varieties is the main focus of our technological effort, " he said, "whether these are new varieties from our aligned partner, Driscoll's, or from other successful breeding programmes where we have an ability to work with the breeder or their agent."
Supporting the introduction of new varieties is one of the functions of the Berry Gardens Agronomy Team, led by Jon Marcar. "Many growers are now wholly reliant on agronomic advice from our in-house team of qualified agronomists, and the demand for their services from members continues to increase year on year," said Mr Kelsey.
Agronomic support is seen an essential key element of the Berry Gardens offer to ensure their growers remain profitable. The service began nine years ago with one individual and now consists of a team of six regionally based agronomists with two further appointments to be made in the near future.
Nicholas Marston, Managing Director, said that the Agronomy Team helped growers to become more efficient and increase their production per unit area. "Last year, for example, our growers produced, and Berry Gardens sold, £13.46 million more fruit from a slight decrease in the overall production area surface," he said.
Taking the results of research and putting it into everyday practice is another area where the co-operative is helping its members. For example, recent developments from on-going or completed Hort LINK projects are now being supported by the co-operative and available to its members using EU Operational Programme funds.
Examples include the introduction of pheromone traps for pest monitoring and improved control, supporting the creation of the ECHOH irrigation scheduling service to reduce water usage and the commercial validation of disease forecasting software.
"We also intend to start to work on more fundamental studies of some of the new germplasm available to us, through supporting an Industrial PhD student at the University of Reading," said Paul Kelsey. "As we move away from the tried and tested varieties of yesteryear, such as Elsanta, we need to understand how these newer varieties react to their growing environment so that we can amend our practices in order to maximise production whilst achieving the highest quality."
He continued, "It is vitally important that the UK maintains a core scientific research capability staffed with scientists who are able to work on solutions to the many issues facing the soft fruit industry. We welcome the Minister's visit to Fruit Focus today, and hope that he will take steps to ensure that East Malling Research survives to service our industry."
For more information:
Darren Laws
ZestST
Tel: 01634 672874
Mob: 07958 304375
[email protected]