David Johnson, head of post-harvest research at East Malling Research (EMR), was awarded the Marsh Horticultural Research Award by the President of the Royal Horticultural Society, Peter Buckley, at the Society’s London Flower Show this week.
Johnson and his group at EMR have been instrumental in developing industry standard storage conditions for a wide range of tree fruits with responsibility for providing storage recommendations for all apple and pear varieties grown in the UK.
Predicting the influences of orchard management treatments on storage quality and the development of treatments to improve storage potential, are key aspects of Johnson's research. Developing methodologies to measure quality in horticultural crops both destructively and non-destructively, have also been of major interest to him.
In recent years he has worked to ensure that the UK industry achieves access to new technologies, particularly in controlling ethylene production in climacteric fruits by the use of bioregulants. However, his greatest challenge of late has been to discover the cause behind Diffuse Browning Disorder in controlled atmosphere-stored Cox apples.
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