Article taken from The Fruit Grower, October 2017.
Agrovista has strengthened its fruit agronomy team this season with the addition of two new members, David Taylor and Simon Warren. David is an experienced agronomist, based in Herefordshire, who previously worked at Berry Gardens advising on soft and stone fruit, and Kent-based Simon previously worked as a soft fruit farm manager for S&A Produce. This brings the number of qualified agronomists in Agrovista's fruit team to eight.
The youngest team member, Tom Johnson, has been developing a system that allows existing orchards to be inoculated with mycorrhiza. These soil-dwelling fungi attach to tree roots, resulting in an enormous expansion of the system, benefiting nutrient and water uptake, and resistance to pathogens. The system is mounted on a root-pruning machine. It can be combined with a root-pruning operation or as a straightforward inoculation system, by adjusting blade position. Agrovista is offering the inoculation service in partnership with Loddington Farms, and uses RGPro Horti, manufactured by Plantworks of Sittingbourne, Kent, which contains only pure mycorrhiza isolated from UK soils.
Alex Radu oversees Agrovista's Growers Choice Interactive (GCI), the web-based pest and disease forecasting service that uses on-farm weather stations and Rimpro software. GCI supplies continuously updated information on scab infection periods and codling moth, as well as Neonectria and fireblight infections. This season we have introduced an additional GCI module that predicts flight activity, oviposition and larval emergence of apple sawfly. Effective control requires spraying just before larval emergence begins. Sprays are often applied between petal fall and very early fruitlet, which can be quite a wide window. But, using the sawfly model, it is possible to wait until the correct moment before treating, which has produced excellent results.
All members of the expanded team will be present on the Agrovista stand so please come and meet us and make use of our leading fruit agronomy expertise.