Award details

13TSB_AgriFood Developing a vision system to enhance phenotyping in apples (Pomevision)

Reference	BB/L017466/2
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Mark Else
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Ms Felicidad Fernández Fernández
Institution	National Inst of Agricultural Botany
Department	Centre for Research
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	58,006
Status	Completed
Type	Research Grant
Start date	01/02/2016
End date	30/11/2016
Duration	10 months

Abstract

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 the 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. 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 better manage the quality and yield of their crops, to strategically increase cropping intensity and to inform breeders of the desired routes for the accelerated development of new elite cultivars. 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.

Summary

The UK is not self-sufficient in apples, even during the cropping season, providing only one third of our own consumption with the shortfall made up by imports. A large proportion of this is due to our inability to meet the stringent specification set by supermarkets for Class 1 fruit, which represents 80% of sales. Our consortium represents 20% of the apple crop in the UK; our records show that similar orchards can have outputs that vary by a factor of 2 or 3, with reject fruit going to waste or low value processing. A significant amount of this variation is down to management practice. Our distribution members believe that, by standardising best-practice orchard management, and with a strategic approach to breeding new cultivars, we could gear up our orchards to take back at least 100,000T of the imported volume. This project is designed to enhance the pace of improvement of quality and output parameters in UK apple orchards through improving management practices and strategic data capture. For this, we need detailed management information, which has been sorely lacking due to the labour-intensive and subjective nature of manual checks to date. The project develops a novel vision-based crop measurement technology based on the convergence between state-of-the-art cost effective image capture technology (now achievable using consumer grade cameras instead of expensive scientific instruments) and our new image processing algorithms. These tools will be used to identify and record commercially relevant phenotype traits in detail. This data can be used for yield and quality prediction and management in season, for the optimisation of commercial yields across the UK through the transfer of 'best practice' over a longer timescale, and finally to tie in with the recently completed sequencing of the apple genome, to identify the best markers to more effectively breed new elite cultivars with the best commercial (as well as biological) traits. The project objectives includethe identification and optimisation of the most commercially effective traits, the development of an automated in-field system to regularly measure the status and development of these traits in response to stress and management activities, decision support outputs and the new knowledge required to start the UK strategic development programme for new types of commercial cultivar. The consortium is led by business, in the form of Worldwide Fruit, the UK's largest apple producer and supply group, joined by technology developers who will commercialise the novel platform technology, and supported by East Malling Research, world experts in pomology and apple cultivar development, who will set out the phenotype maps and disseminate the academic outputs relating to genetic markers for improved cultivars. The group has the skills to research, develop, commercialise and exploit the technology in the UK, and will exploit within Europe and/or licence to other manufacturers as volumes grow. TSB support is the catalyst needed to drive this innovation across the business-academia gap, while the exposure the scheme brings will help us to penetrate the market more quickly. Potential benefits to the UK apple growers' industry are: raising production quality (percentage within spec.) to better meet supermarket size and uniformity specifications, saving up to £40M of wasted product; increasing the UK average cropping intensity by up to 50% through 'best practice' identification and transfer, growing capacity by a further £50M; and giving the UK the capability to strategically lead the world in the rapid development of new cultivars, shortening the introduction time by potentially up to 5 years

Impact Summary

Beneficiaries from this research will be primarily the UK apple growers. There are 400 orchards in the UK that could take up our technology. Our consortium members represent over 30% of the UK crop (70 significant-sized growers). Potential benefits to the UK apple growers industry are: raising production quality (percentage within spec.) to better meet supermarket size and uniformity specifications, saving up to £40M of wasted product; increasing the UK average cropping intensity by up to 50% through 'best practice' identification and transfer, growing capacity by a further £50M; and giving the UK the capability to strategically lead the world in the rapid development of new cultivars, shortening the introduction time by potentially up to five years. UK apple growers will benefit from using the system and knowledge to: Firstly, improve the management of this year's crop to produce a maximised, more reliable yield of Class 1 fruit to meet the supermarket specification at highest price. This yield improvement is expected to be up to 25%. Secondly, have the ability to improve winter pruning activity to optimise the structural / cropping wood ratio and to train branch angles, in order to increase the yield potential of the tree for next year's crop. Thirdly, apple breeders will gain benefit by the QTL work carried out here to connect commercially important phenotypic traits to the apple genome, allowing more focussed breeding programmes. The ability of the system to provide early prediction of physiological growth characteristics will also enable breeding programmes to produce experimental results more quickly, speeding the introduction of commercially relevant new varieties. Fourthly, equipment providers will be able to exploit a novel methodology and hardware system that can capture and analyse high definition images in very unstructured and variable environments. This will be sellable across tree fruit and other horticultural applications, as well as being transferable into other sectors such as security. The wider public will benefit from the provision of more fruit with good organoleptic quality and eating more fruit and vegetables has been shown to play a key role in fighting obesity, heart disease and diabetes by providing consumers with a healthy and sustainable diet option. Reduced food miles for 100,000Tonnes of product (transported 400km by road from European countries) would reduce CO2 emissions by 5,000 tonnes (estimated at 125g CO2 per T.km: AECOM Freight emissions benchmarking report). The UK need to intensify its cropping, as land for production is not increasing. The government wants UK horticulture to double its production and become more "Food Secure".

Committee	Research Committee A (Animal disease, health and welfare)
Research Topics	Crop Science, Plant Science
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	Innovate UK (TSB) [2011-2015]
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

Associated awards:

BB/L017466/1 13TSB_AgriFood Developing a vision system to enhance phenotyping in apples (Pomevision)

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