In late February, the CrackSense consortium organised a three-day symposium at the Corsican INRAE facility in San Giuliano. From February 26th to 28th, this event marked a significant milestone in our collective efforts to address fruit cracking.
The symposium not only facilitated the exchange of expertise but also paid homage to Corsica’s rich agricultural heritage, highlighting the island’s vital role in citrus cultivation, including varieties such as clementines, lemons, and mandarins.
Now, as we move into June, we are excited to share a video that captures the key moments and insights from this important meeting.
The CrackSense Project: A Technological Approach
The CrackSense project is dedicated to preventing fruit cracking, a major physiological disorder that affects fruit quality and yield. This issue, which primarily occurs during the pre-harvest stage due to climatic and environmental conditions and suboptimal orchard management, presents a significant challenge to farmers. But how can we prevent it from becoming a persistent and costly problem for farmers?
The EU-funded CrackSense project aims to tackle this challenge by developing and scaling up sensing technologies for real-time monitoring of fruit cracking in citrus, pomegranate, table grapes, and sweet cherries.
The integrated CrackSense solution will merge EU-wide data sets, including Earth observation data and other environmental information, to enhance agricultural monitoring and help reduce yield losses from fruit cracking.
Highlights from the Consortium Meeting in San Giuliano
To conclude a first successful year towards achieving this goal, CrackSense partners gathered at the consortium meeting in San Giuliano, Corsica. They shared insights and reviewed the project’s progress across various work packages, addressing questions, challenges, and suggesting innovative ideas.
The meeting covered the TOMMY system for temperature and wetness data collection, guidelines for data processing, and the use of morphological and remote sensing data. Partners further aligned their data collection approaches and planned future experimental and piloting activities.
The consortium also embarked on a field visit to a local farmer organisation and a citrus packing house. It was followed by a visit to one of the world’s largest citrus germplasm collections at INRAE-CIRAD facility in San Giuliano.
These visits are helping set the stage for a promising future in mitigating fruit cracking by always staying close to the orchards, considering daily farmer needs and developing advanced agricultural techniques.
Looking Ahead
The ongoing efforts and collaborative spirit of the CrackSense consortium are paving the way for innovative solutions to prevent fruit cracking. By always staying connected with the farming community and focusing on practical, advanced techniques, the project is well on its way to making a significant impact.
What innovative solutions will their continued work yield? It will be exciting to find out!
Watch our video to see the highlights from our first consortium meeting, learn about our innovative approaches, and discover the latest advancements from the CrackSense project by following our LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram pages and our Newsroom for deeper insights and practical applications.