Scotland's James Hutton Institute and the agritech company AgriSound are developing a precision monitoring system to help fruit growers spot gaps in pollination and decide when to intervene.

Growers usually judge pollination by eye and by standard hive recommendations, but more variable weather, changing pollinator populations and differences between sites make those judgements less reliable, the partners say.

The project builds on AgriSound's Precision Pollination platform, which uses its Polly bioacoustic sensors and artificial intelligence to monitor pollinator activity. It will be extended to track honeybees, bumblebees, solitary bees and hoverflies across strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, blackberries and cherries. Validation studies will combine acoustic monitoring with smart-tag observations, time-lapse imaging, environmental monitoring and crop performance measurements, and the data will be used to improve the detection algorithms.

Researchers will examine how pollinator activity relates to fruit set, yield and fruit quality, giving growers clearer evidence of when pollination is inadequate. The Hutton will also study how flower characteristics and plant genetics affect pollinator attraction, to help breed fruit varieties that combine commercial traits with greater appeal to pollinators.

"Pollination is mission-critical to fruit production, but it is still too often managed through assumption," said Dr Casey Woodward, AgriSound's chief executive. Dr Susan McCallum, soft fruit geneticist and breeder at the Hutton, said the collaboration could give growers and breeders real-world insight to make better-informed decisions.

The partners say the work could help make the UK fruit sector's production systems more resilient over the long term.

Source: Seed World Europe