Predicting tomato yields could be a more precise science in the near future. A Defra-funded research project being undertaken by a team at HRI Wellesbourne is developing an IT-based system that will accurately forecast yields of toms in glasshouses based on historical data.
Steve Adams of HRI told Tomato Conference 2003 that work so far has already thrown up some interesting insights and challenged the way the prediction process has traditionally been viewed. Yield fluctuations, he said, are not simply a product of variations of fruit size and set or the temperature of the surrounding environment, but the temperature of the fruit itself is very important.
"We have found that the temperature around the truss does not affect when it will ripen as much as the temperature of the truss itself," Adams said. "Fruit temperature can be very different to plant temperature, which in turn can be very different to the air temperature. Understanding this is very important to determining yield patterns within the glasshouse."
It is still too early to make major claims about the system, he said, and all data collected so far has been taken from Espero production areas. "The results so far are not perfect, there have been deviations. But as we are able to collect more commercial data to work with, a little tweaking with the system will allow us to predict weekly yields accurately," said Adams.
For producers and their customers, the ability to precisely predict crop development would be a major fillip, facilitating more exact pre-planning in the tomato category.
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