Research for 2020

Jack Hughes, our new research and development manager, has provided a brief summary of the R&D projects we will be working on with Plant & Food Research during the year.

Project	Leader and researchers	Objectives	Final report due in 2020
Benchmarking of SummerGreen programme	Peter Lo	Analysis of agchem use patterns. ID of seasonal issues. Agchem use and resistance management guidelines.	31 July
Cherry pollination	Max Buxton	Develop a pollen dose response curve for (self-compatible) Staccato. Estimate number of bee visits required for successful pollination. Put result into context with current literature.	30 June
Suppression of fungal and bacterial diseases	Phil Elmer, Virginia Marroni, Peter Wood	CO: Evaluate two post-harvest cherry biofungicides. CO: Assess and identify ‘dry’ and canker-like lesions in new cherry orchards. HB: Determine sensitivity of wild brown rot strains to a new fungicide and monitor effectiveness of a new resistance management programme in late season peaches.	30 Sept
Apricot evaluation	Jill Stanley, Claire Scofield	Harvest and post-harvest evaluation of elite selections (two harvest dates x three storage intervals for five selections). Propagation of trees (two selections x two tree forms – FOPs & ML).	30 June
Research scholarship	Jill Stanley, Michael Hutton	Light relations (interception and distribution) of planar cordon growing systems. Suitability of new apricot selections for the Asian market.	31 March

Jack is looking forward to sharing the results of this work as it comes through.

Posted 08/01/2020