Using robotics to surmount labour challenges in commercial horticultureFrom mobile platforms to deliver automated crop-tending services to banana de-handing robots, QUT's Dr Chris Lehnert is helping cut labour costs to Australia’s indoor cropping sector.
Meet Romina Rader: insect pollinator expert UNE Professor Romina Rader’s focus is on plant–animal interactions in natural and human-modified environments - in particular, the role pollinators play in horticultural cropping.
Melville Park farm: a value-adding storyDavid Doepel and wife Barbara Connell are co-custodians of historic Melville Park Farm, where they’re collaborating with researchers and local businesses to add value to primary produce.
FFS PhD student finds cost-effective hands-free way to estimate plant height in protected cropping facilitiesNamal Jayasuriya’s research at Western Sydney University using machine vision to estimate crop-height, a proxy for vegetative growth, has been published in Computers and Electronics in Agriculture.
Robots to make banana processing more a-peelingHort Innovation, QUT, ARM Hub and Australian Hydraulics Services are collaborating with Future Food Systems in a $2M project to automate the labour-intensive job of de-handing bananas.
Angus Dingley, PhD student: Improving warm-zone raspberry cultivationUNE's Angus Dingley is exploring how temperature extremes affect pollination in polytunnels to help growers produce more and better berries.
Expert research team to extend Australian Tree Crop Map in $1.7m collaborationUniversity of New England mapping experts are again teaming with Hort Innovation in a significant collaboration to extend the national tree-crop map.
What do Australian consumers want when buying fruit & veg?NSW DPI is collaborating with QUT and farmers state-wide in research that aims to establish what drives consumers' fresh-produce purchases – knowledge growers can use to craft personalised marketing messages.
Hort Innovation explores tech-enabled solutions to berry-sector labour woesHort Innovation consulted berry growers Australia-wide to identify viable, cost-effective technology to address one of the sector’s greatest challenges: harvesting labour.
Plans for NT food manufacturing plant revealedA Charles Darwin University research group reveals what's needed for Northern Australia to build its own food manufacturing capabilities.
Can novel microbiome technology boost popular crop yields?In a Hort Innovation-backed project part-funded by the CRC, Murdoch University scientists are exploring the specific combinations of microbes required to cut chemical use and boost yields in some of Australia’s most valuable fruit and veg crops.
Setting the course for protected croppingA nine-year strategy for those growing crops undercover developed by QDAF with input from key stakeholders including FIAL and the CRC is set to be implemented by Protected Cropping Australia and Hort Innovation.
Hort Innovation Masterclass in Horticultural Business 2022: applications openThe Horticulture Innovation Australia-backed University of Tasmania course is now in its fifth year. Apply now to join the 2022 cohort.
Hort Innovation-AUSVEG-QDAF pilot shows fresh produce could be sea-freightedNew controlled-atmosphere tech shown to double the shelf life of sea-freighted fresh veg could give Australia's horticulture exporters an edge amid pandemic-fuelled air-freight price hikes.
New sustainability framework for Australian horticulture sectorBoosting water and energy efficiency and cutting waste are just some of the opportunities identified in HIA’s new Horticulture Sustainability Framework, developed with extensive input from sector stakeholders.
Perfection Fresh acquires table grapes firm, eyeing export market expansionNational fruit and veg wholesaler Perfection Fresh has acquired a major table grapes operation as part of an ongoing push to diversify.
Costa Group acquires Central Queensland citrus operation in export pushCRC industry partner Costa Group has diversified its business further by acquiring Queensland citrus-growing company 2PH Farms.
Fifth-gen vegie grower’s global e-sales nets him Hort Innovation’s Exporter of the YearThe HIA-sponsored exporter award at Hort Connections' 2021 went to Queensland vegie grower Steven Moffat, who's been direct-selling Moffat products into overseas markets since 2015.
Improving access to Asia for Northern Australia’s premium perishablesEnsuring Asian-market access to Northern Australia's premium perishable produce could be worth $5.6b p.a. in revenue to Queensland alone. So the CRC for Developing Northern Australia is keen to get it right.
