AP19005

Project Leader

Dr Ian Goodwin
Email

[email protected]
Lead Agency

Agriculture Victoria
Access the AP19005 Information Sheet

The research

This AP19005 Project is being undertaken in the experimental pear orchard at Agriculture Victoria’s Tatura SmartFarm and in commercial orchards in the Goulburn Valley to:

Determine training system, planting density and rootstock effects on yield, fruit quality and irrigation requirements.
Determine crop load relationships and investigate thinning to minimise biennial bearing and maximise fruit quality and yield (in collaboration with the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture).
Investigate the determinants of colour expression.
Explore effects of alternate-side coloured hail netting to maximise fruit colour and minimise sun damage.
Calibrate and validate a mobile sensing platform equipped with LiDAR and optical cameras (Green Atlas CartographerTM) to spatially measure tree size and fruit number, size and colour.
Test sensing equipment (SwarmFarm Robotics) for spatially assessing flower phenology.