Every tree in an orchard will soon be scanned, measured, and sprayed with its own custom dose of fertiliser or pesticide, rather than receiving the same blanket treatment as its neighbours. Current practice treats entire orchards uniformly, even though adjacent trees can differ dramatically in size, crop load, and health. This wastes chemicals, reduces yield, and harms the environment. The project will build a Precision Variable Rate Spray machine, control software, and tree-assessment systems that together calculate each tree’s exact needs and deliver tailored treatments. If successful, UK fruit growers will gain the most advanced crop management system available. The technology could cut chemical use and runoff, lower costs, and boost yields—improving both farm profitability and environmental sustainability. The consortium includes growers, agronomy firms, robotics engineers, and three universities, ensuring the system is practical and ready for field demonstrations. At the project’s end, growers will have clear data on the economic and environmental benefits of switching from uniform to precision spraying.
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Current tree fruit production applies crop management products uniformly across each orchard, however, orchards exhibit substantial variation across them and between trees. Even neighbouring trees have very different growth and crop loads. Treating all trees uniformly regardless of their size, density, crop load, or health limits yield, is inefficient, and detrimental to the orchard productivity and the environment. This project will develop a Precision Variable Rate Spray (PVRS) machine, control software system, and new systems for measuring and assessing each individual trees' status. These components will be combined into products and services that will transform the tree fruit industry and deliver new levels of environmentally sustainable crop production, increasing efficiency and yield whilst lowering costs and environmental impacts. Integral to this approach is that every individual tree in the orchard will be assessed, its requirements calculated, and then treated with a tailored quantity of crop management products. This will reduce wastage and improve yields. Led by one of the UK's leading and forward-thinking agronomy companies, this project includes a range of high quality growers, a large top fruit marketing organisation, a software engineering company specialising in global positioning systems, a top fruit digital agronomy company, a crop phenotyping specialist, a robotics company, a horticultural engineering company, the UK's agricultural chemical regulation organisation, and three academic institutions specialising in agricultural engineering and robotics, computer science, economics, and horticultural agronomy. Working closely across the tree fruit industry's production chain ensures that the products and services developed during the project are designed for the grower and meet their requirements. The consortium's network allows us to engage with the wider fruit industry. The project will showcase the products and services to the horticulture sector with a range of knowledge exchange activities and field demonstrations. During the project we will assess the new spray system's benefits relative to conventional spraying, and report on the economic and environmental advantages of investing in Precision Variable Rate Spraying. At the end of the project, UK growers will have access to the most advanced and efficient tree fruit crop management system available, and understand the environmental and economic benefits of using the system.
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