Growing horticulture through protected cropping innovation

This program, funded through the Hort Innovation Frontiers program, will help protected cropping growers maintain profitability by delivering key aspects of the Protected Cropping Strategic Investment Plan, specifically sustainability, advanced agronomy, automation to reduce labour costs, energy and improving staff skills and management.

About the project

Project partner

Hort Innovation Hort Frontiers program

Duration

2024-2031

The program activities address urgent issues and opportunities that were identified during consultations with leading growers in Australia. The issues come from industry, and the solutions will come from a combined effort between researchers, growers and industry specialists working together toward common goals. 

Key priorities

The investment of public funds will help growers find answers quickly and see benefits much sooner than would otherwise be the case. The key program outcomes include:

  • New technology: Innovating a two-dimensional avocado canopy for automated pruning, automated tomato pollination, crop spraying with robots, and tomato truss packing and harvesting systems to minimise labour, a supplemental LED lighting system for Australian conditions, and labour-saving automated equipment for avocado cultivation.

  • Attracting and retaining people: Creating a high-tech horticulture training program in South Australia, developing a software to monitor farm worker training, and enhancing skills of farm staff in avocado cultivation.

  • Sustainability: Developing a system for recycling perlite growing media and strategies to enhance strawberry cultivation with reduced nitrate leaching in Northern NSW.

  • Advanced agronomy: Establishing a cutting-edge research facility in South Australia, introducing an AI-based growing system for local growers, creating a quality management system for avocado substrate cultivation, tools to manage biennial avocado bearing, optimising light interception for better yield in containerized avocados. Research will support the design of netting, rain covers, and solar panel protected cropping systems to consistently produce high yields of quality fruit, increase resilience to extreme climate events, and potentially generate electricity for onsite and offsite use. 

Contact

For more information contact 

Anita Chennell, Applied Horticultural Research Pty Ltd

anita.chennel@ahr.com.au

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