Strawberry powdery mildew causes yield and fruit quality losses of 20%–70%, where 20% loss equates to £56 million, in the UK. Growers are looking for more sustainable approaches to manage this serious disease. Funding from Ceres Agri-Tech – a partnership between UK universities led by Cambridge Enterprise (the commercialisation arm of the University of Cambridge) – has resulted in commercialisation of a decision support system to alert the grower when it’s time to protect their crops. The platform has delivered benefits for strawberry growers involved in the Ceres-sponsored trials and since 2020 has been commercially available to strawberry growers in the UK and beyond.
Added 10 November 2022; updated 3 May 2023.