Grower R&D Update

Dr Mark O’Connell is a Research Scientist – Agricultural Water Management in the division of Horticulture Production Sciences at Agriculture Victoria. He is based at the Tatura Research Centre in Victoria.

Mark has 29+ years experience in research and development with expertise in rainfed and irrigated farming systems, dryland salinity, and soil-water-plant dynamics. The focus of his recent research includes irrigation management, plant physiology, and agronomy of irrigated perennial horticultural crops.

Mark has a keen research interest in the use of state-of-the-art of instrumentation for plant physiology research, satellite remote sensing, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Recent research interests are in the area of non-destructive technologies for fruit quality assessment (DA meter, NIR) and light interception measurement of canopies.

Dr. Nigel Swarts is a Research Fellow in the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tasmania. His research is in the field of tree physiology and specifically tree crop nutrition. Nigel leads the fertigation project for the PIPS II program.

Matthew Pryor is co-founder of Tenacious Ventures and a Partner at AgThentic. He was previously co-founder of Observant, an Australian agtech pioneer acquired by Jain Irrigation in February 2017. He was the founding chair of Rocket Seeder, a food & ag innovation accelerator, is currently chair of the Australian Government Agriculture 4.0 Task Force and is passionate about promoting Australian agri-food innovation globally.

Brent is the General orchard manager at Geoffrey Thompson Orchards, who currently runs 750 hectors of Apples and pears grown for fresh fruit consumption. They supply retailers Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, and International export markets.

Growing up on his family’s apple and pear orchard, Brent was inspired by his father’s natural talent of horticulture, and he is now a fourth-generation orchardist. Brent started his apprenticeship on the family orchard and in his fourth year leased an apple orchard in Tasmania.

Ten years later, Brent moved his family to Victoria and started working at Geoffrey Thompson Orchards, establishing their first orchard in the Goulburn Valley, a 125ha V trellis orchard.

After being promoted to General Orchard Manager in 2015, Brent travelled extensively visiting different countries to explore different growing systems and irrigation techniques. He continues to grow his knowledge and love for horticulture to this day.

Katja Hogendoorn is a senior researcher at the School of Agriculture, Food and Wine of the University of Adelaide. She is interested in foraging and nesting behaviour, and pollination services of both honey bees and Australian native bees. She describes new bee species and promotes habitat restoration for pollination services and bee health. Katja currently she leads a project funded by the Department of Agriculture to develop revegetation strategies for farmers of pollination dependent crops in South Australia, and a new project in which she focuses on optimising hive health and pollination outcomes for apple under net.

Professor James Cook leads the Plants, Animals and Interactions research theme at the Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University

His research interests lie in the ecology and evolution of species interactions, and he is particularly interested in how intimate symbiosis influences the biology of the species involved. Pollinators are a particular interest and his current research focuses mainly on insect pollinator communities and their role in crop pollination. He is also an expert on specialist pollination systems, such as the classic mutualism between fig trees and wasps, while another research priority centres on insects and their endosymbiotic bacteria.

James is currently leading two large projects to better understand the role of insects in pollination of Australian horticultural crops, and develop resilient pollination options in the face of threats to honeybee populations. These projects cover research on crop pollination, stingless bee biology and husbandry, seasonal floral resource use by bees, and bee health and diseases.

His work involves field, laboratory and computational approaches and makes extensive use of molecular methods. Many of his projects involve links with collaborators in Australia, India, China, France, UK and USA. James also has wider research interests in animal behaviour, conservation biology and evolutionary genetics.

Dr Lisa Evans is an early-career biologist with a special interest in behaviour and ecology of social hymenoptera. Her work with Plant and Food Research’s Pollination & Apiculture team involves quantifying the pollination contributions of flower visiting insects in a wide range of horticultural systems, and improving and diversifying pollination practices. Key areas include optimising pollination and improving honey bee hive health under covers.

Ashley Zamek is the Research and Development Manager of the Pollination Fund, part of the Hort Frontiers strategic partnership initiative at Hort Innovation. Ashley works across pollination-dependent industries to help ensure a sustainable and resilient Australian horticultural sector through improved crop pollination services and pollinator options. Ashley manages both Hort Frontiers and Strategic Levy investments to address industry needs. Ashley also sits on the AgriFutures Honey Bee & Pollination Advisory Panel.

Dr Ian Goodwin is the Research Leader Crop Physiology in Agriculture Victoria.

Ian has more than 35 years’ experience in horticulture research and innovation with a focus on intensive production systems, crop water requirements and climate challenges.

In recent years, Ian established the experimental pear orchard and the Sundial orchard at the Tatura SmartFarm to investigate the effects of tree density, training system, row orientation, rootstocks, cultivar and irrigation on yield, quality and labour efficiency.

These experimental orchards have provided a resource to study sun damage thresholds, colour development, tree physiology (e.g. photoinhibition, transpiration), crop regulation, water relations and root extent.

Angus Hogan is the Horticulture Project Lead at SwarmFarm Robotics, a company delivering autonomous solutions to the Australian agriculture industry. Angus comes from an irrigated cropping and livestock farming family, has a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering and is completing a Graduate Certificate of Precision Agriculture. Prior to starting this role he was the Fuse Technologies Product Manager at AGCO, where he was responsible for product introduction, marketing strategy, dealer development and product support for AGCO’s precision ag portfolio across Australia and New Zealand. Angus is based in Shepparton where he is leading the Hort Innovation project: “AP16005 – Developing agri-tech solutions to the Australian apple industry”, a project that is developing commercial solutions to utilise variable rate chemical flower thinning as a tool for the better management of crop load.

Roei Yaakobi has a rich history in agricultural production and technology which started with family in Israel and spread to Australia several years ago. Roei is the CEO of Tie Up Farming, one of the leading ag-tech startups in the horticulture sector around the world.

Rob Blakey is the R&D Manager at Stemilt Growers in Washington state, one of the largest and leading apple, pear, and cherry grower-packer-marketers in the US. Rob grew up and studied in eastern South Africa, earning his PhD in avocado postharvest physiology. Rob worked at Westfalia Fruit in South Africa and the UK as a horticultural researcher in avocados, moved to Washington state in 2016 to work briefly at Washington State University as a postharvest extension agent before moving to Stemilt. Rob manages both the R&D and new variety programmes at Stemilt.

Susie has over 25 years’ experience in the Horticulture sector in a diverse range of roles. For the past 7 years, Susie has held the position of CEO of the Apple & Pear Growers Association of SA, acting as the voice of the apple and pear industry in South Australia, and in the past 3 years, has also acted as Executive Officer for the Cherry Growers Association of SA. Prior to that, Susie worked in sales, marketing and agronomic roles with Sentek Technologies, promoting soil moisture technology around the world, and has experience in soil and land evaluation, water management and postharvest research.

Jason Shields is the Orchard Manager at Plunkett Orchards in the Goulburn Valley. With years of experience under his belt, Jason and his orchard team grow some of the world’s best fruit across our four orchards. Jason oversees ongoing innovation in orchard production practice as part of our commitment to continuous improvement.

Bec Whittaker is Orchard Manager of Ladycroft Orchard which is approximately 50 ha of
mixed apple varieties. The orchard is located in the Manjimup area in the South West, of
Western Australia and part of the Casotti Enterprises group of orchards.

Bec has 15+ year’s experience working on a number of orchards in the Manjimup region.

Bec has furthered her knowledge of horticulture and management through various courses
including a Diploma of Horticulture.

In recent years Bec has undertaken study tours of Europe and Washington State USA with
APAL, as well as the north island of New Zealand and Victoria.

Bec is a passionate orchardist with a strong focus on quality through employing latest best
practice techniques throughout her orchard.

In 2019 she won the APAL Award for Excellence – Women in Horticulture.

David Williams is a Principal Research Scientist-Invertebrate Sciences in Agriculture Victoria within the Victorian Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions. His 40-plus years experience in research and extension dedicated to orchard pest management led to the creation of the successful CropWatch pest management advisory service. More recently David led the PIPS IPDM project that resulted in importation and release of the parasitoid wasp Mastrus ridens to control codling moth. He currently leads a project developing a revised IPDM manual for the Apple and Pear Industry, and leads the Victorian component of release of sterile (SITPlus) Queensland fruit fly.

Francis De Lima is an agricultural scientist having a doctorate from Imperial College, University of London with postdoctoral specialisation in post-harvest preservation.  He worked with the Department of Agriculture WA from 1989 to 2014 developing fruit fly disinfestation data packages to achieve access to international quarantine markets for Australian citrus, mangoes, table grapes, avocados, stone fruit, cherries, etc.  He consults on market access projects in Australia and for New Zealand Plant Health.  His current work is on apple quality management in the cold chain from pre-harvest to final consumer and fruit fly disinfestation for market access.