News - Projects

Apple growing systems – innovation central

December 16, 2021

Has there ever been a time when the apple industry has been planting new orchards on so many different growing systems? Don’t think so. The creative energy and diversity are great. It does beg a question – is there one system that’s better than the rest? Or with the right management, can any of them excel?

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Green Atlas Backed by Science!

November 30, 2021

Agriculture Victoria have scientifically validated Green Atlas Cartographer for mapping of flowers, fruit, canopy geometry, light interception and yield estimation in apples. Lead author Alessio Scalisi (pictured) concluded that “Cartographer provided accurate predictions of several important crop parameters, which “can be beneficial both for growers and scientists to collect data for multiple crop properties at high spatial resolution and replace labour-intensive operations.”

Click HERE for a full paper

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Labour crisis 2021

March 29, 2021

The Covid induced labour shortage looks set to cost the apple industry in the order of $100M this harvest season.

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Platform ready?

November 26, 2020

Media stories tend to give the impression to the ‘man in the street’ that the apple crop can be or soon will be picked by robots.

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Canopy Management – looking back, looking ahead

September 11, 2020

This article reflects on changing pruning and canopy management styles in apples and considers some of the drivers of change. We then discuss new scanning technology that is improving our ability to measure and act on crop and canopy variability within our orchards.

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Apple growing systems – running hot

March 15, 2020

The NZ apple industry is currently enjoying an exciting time of innovation and exploration in the development of growing systems. Let’s chat about what’s happening starting with setting the scene.

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Spray and know it’s OK

February 16, 2020

Agrichemicals are essential inputs in the production of virtually all horticultural crops – in both conventional and organic production systems.

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