Technological solutions to advance sustainable horticulture awarded £500k
31st July 2024
Four businesses that are using cutting-edge technology to advance sustainable horticulture have been awarded £500,000 to commercialise their prototypes by Growing Kent & Medway.
Automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence will be harnessed to control pests and diseases in fruit and vine crops in two of the research projects.
Two further projects will use advances in biotechnology to test the by-products of horticultural crops to create new sustainable food ingredients.
The funding was awarded through Growing Kent & Medway’s Prototyping and Demonstrator competition, which was designed to develop and bring to market new technologies in the horticultural food and drink supply chain.
Supporting business-focused innovative technology development
Dr Nikki Harrison, director at Growing Kent & Medway, said: “This funding competition was designed to support business-focused innovative technology development that has the potential to be applied in a real-world commercial environment.
“These collaborative and innovative projects demonstrate how advances in agri-technology can help to make our food systems more sustainable.
“From using energy more efficiently and reducing inputs like crop protection chemicals, to increasing productivity and reducing food waste.”
Machine learning to detect diseases in vineyards
Artificial intelligence and machine learning will be used to analyse satellite imagery to detect and predict the presence of plant diseases in UK vineyards.
The project aims to identify the presence of important fungal diseases, like botrytis and powdery and downy mildew, more effectively than current detection methods that use humans or drones.
The nine-month project, led by Deep Planet, will be delivered with prominent UK wine producers and the Wine Innovation Centre at NIAB.
Sushma Shankar, co-founder of Deep Planet Ltd, said: “We applied for the Prototyping and Demonstrator Fund to help bring climate change resilience to vineyards in the Kent and Medway region.
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