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NIAB’s recent WET Centre event at East Malling focused on the sustainability and circularity that its research team have aspired to develop, both at the centre and in related research projects

Visitors to the open day had the opportunity to review the various ndings that have emerged from the Centre, the plans for the research work there this year, the research dedicated to recycle coir substrate, and discover how the Growing Kent & Medway programme of work is helping to support soft fruit growers in their quest to become more sustainable.

Water usage e ciency

Dr Mark Else explained that the Centre was originally set up in 2017 to demonstrate best practice and precision in water use e ciency to give soft fruit growers the con dence to change their approach to water management. By seeing how the outputs from research projects could be implemented on a semi-commercial scale, growers could better understand how to improve water use e ciency on their own farms, and to move towards self-su ciency.

In the early years, using the June-bearer Malling Centenary, the Centre demonstrated that, by using the Precision Irrigation Programme (PIP) to automatically match demand for water with supply, average daily run-o volumes as low as 1–5% could be achieved, without a corresponding rise in coir pore electrical conductivity (EC) and the consequential need for ushing events. Further work with the ever-bearer variety Malling Champion demonstrated that increasing average daily run-o volumes from 5% to 10% did not improve Class 1 yields further, con rming that 5% run-o is optimal in terms of production e ciency.

Many growers have now adopted a range of irrigation scheduling techniques to implement precision irrigation in their own businesses. The use of precision irrigation and rainwater harvesting techniques at the Centre have achieved at least 90% self-su ciency, even in hot, dry seasons such as 2018.

Mimicking commercial tunnels

An advanced area of the Centre employing rainwater harvesting systems, automatic roof venting systems and the latest tunnel technologies, has been compared to a commercial tunnel area that mimics the majority of commercial strawberry tunnel systems employed in the industry. In recent seasons, the commercial area has produced 5% higher yields, and as the new technology was thought to cause more shading and a reduction in light interception, further research has focused on the impact of the tunnel environment on Photosynthetically Active Radiation (PAR) and row position.

The results have shown that there are signi cant di erences in light availability between rows in each tunnel and this has an impact on total marketable yield, with centre rows producing up to 12% higher yields than the outside rows. Row position has also been found to a ect fruit quality, which is also higher in the centre rows. Most recently, NIAB has shown that plant photosynthesis reaches a peak in the morning and decreases throughout the day, so work is now turning to how the research team can manage tunnels to maximise light interception during the early hours of the day. In a bid to raise light levels in the crop canopy, white re ective covers were experimented with; although they did increase PAR above ground level, this increase did not extend as high as the crop canopy, which is typically 1.5m above ground level.

Looking at 2023 plans

WET Centre manager Trevor Wignall outlined some of the workplans for 2023 at the Centre, including sharing that in 2023, he is working with Neta m to compare the use of its new ‘Netbow’ irrigation delivery system in the Malling Bella raspberry, compared to two standard drippers per pot. In strawberry this year, Neta m is also comparing the impact of delivering straight feeds versus compound fertilisers, using its Neta m fertigation rig.

In 2019, the Centre was extended to include dedicated raspberry tunnels and, after NIAB scientists had developed a nitrogen demand model for the primocane variety Malling Bella, it was tested and validated in 2022 by NIAB scientist Carlota Gonzalez-Noguer.

Using Malling Bella in 2022, the team compared the use of a standard grower feed recipe with a reduced nitrogen recipe which followed the nitrogen demand model. This led to a reduction of more than 50% of the nitrogen used in the standard recipe, although by the end of the season, there was a slight reduction in marketable yield. The original model had been developed using di erent glasshouse-grown crops overseas and the generic crop coe cients embedded in the model were not found to be accurate enough for raspberry production in the UK, so the NIAB team are developing speci c crop coe cients for raspberry and are planning to repeat the exercise in 2023 for Malling Bella.

Continuing with the sustainability and circularity theme, NIAB pathologist Mat PappRupar provided an overview of recent work with Overland Ltd to develop methods to recycle coir substrate. Previous EU funded work at NIAB (Horti-blueC) with Berry Gardens Growers Ltd, demonstrated successful re-planting of coir bags with June-bearer strawberry, but signi cant yield penalty resulted when everbearers were re-planted year on year. Overland Ltd, a company o ering agricultural waste removal and recycling services in Kent, funded work with NIAB in 2022 to compare the properties of re-used, composted and recycled coir.

All reused and composted coir had a reduced air- lled porosity and increased water holding capacity. The EC increased after composting and recycling, while K and Ca levels varied depending on the type of coir analysed. The incidence of Phytophthora cactorum (the cause of crown rot) increased in composted coir, but where coir was recycled using the system Overland has been developing, the incidence of the pathogen was no di erent to virgin coir. Re-used, composted and recycled coir all recorded a reduction in strawberry crop yield, but the recycled coir had the smallest reduction, so further work is being done to re ne and improve the recycling procedure used by Overland.