Welcome from NIAB

Fruit Focus offers an oasis of new technical information in 2023.

At this time last year, the fruit industry was facing up to soaring costs in all areas of production, a lack of adequate labour to harvest crops, diminishing numbers of authorised crop protection products, pressure to rapidly move towards ‘net-zero’ and uncertainty over fallout from the war in Ukraine. Twelve months on, growers are facing similar issues. One constant in all of this turmoil has been research and the continuing development of new technology to support fruit growers in their quest to remain profitable.

Last year, visitors to Fruit Focus had theopportunity to view the new facilities that had been developed at East Malling with funding from Growing Kent & Medway, Kent County Council and The East Malling Trust. The new state-of-the-art buildings allow NIAB to collaborate with industry partners to undertake meaningful research that reflects the growing systems used by commercial growers, and in the past year Growing Kent & Medway has commissioned several research projects with NIAB that use these facilities.

This year, visitors can learn more about some of these Growing Kent & Medway funded projects along with the outputs from fruitresearch projects that have been funded by Innovate UK and the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Stand 700, Fruit Research Innovation Hub, is dedicated to showcasing some of the most exciting innovations that are being delivered to the fruit industry through funding from these three organisations. There will also be three research tours leaving from this Hub at 10am, 11am and 2pm, to view some of the work in action. Included at the Hub are a 3D food printer, research investigating strawberry and raspberry varietal resistance to SWD, technology to estimate fruit and yield data, new imaging devices, a novel soilless growing medium, information on recycled coir and a system for optimising sticky traps for western flower thrips and whitefly using visual modelling.

NIAB will also be offering its annual research tours, starting from the NIAB stand (500). Visitors to the WET Centre will find out whatwe are learning about strawberry row position and how we might increase yields in the leg rows, and about a new model to match nitrogen supply with demand in raspberry. They can also view the performance of the new everbearer strawberry MallingTM Ace. Tree management comparisons and water and nutrition research will be the focus in the Plum Demonstration Centre, while those attending the Vine and Wine tour will meet our new oenologist Dr Belinda Kemp and find out how she plans to support the expanding viticulture industry. The Pathology tour will reveal how NIAB scientists are predicting strawberry infection by Mucor and Rhizopus and the fate of biocontrol agents following application.

These are just some of the exciting new developments that are emerging to support fruit growers, but visitors will also benefit from this year’s vast line up of speakers at the Fruit Forum and from touring round the extensive range of visitors stands.