Rising temperatures and solar radiation are increasingly leading to fruit damage during cultivation. The SHEET project aims at heat and sunburn predictions to counter this risk. Project partners from Italy, Hungary and Germany met on Feb 18, 2021 for the digital launch of the project. Over the next three years, they will develop risk models based on measurements in fruit production to provide a mobile warning and information system to farmers.

The increase in global radiation and temperature are leading to new challenges in fruit production. In recent years, the risk of heat damage has increased dramatically in subtropical growing regions. Also in commercial orchards and vineyards in the temperate climate zone, increased heat damage can already be observed. 

Effects can be seen in visually damaged fruit tissue, which is synonymous with reduced product quality and leads to significant yield losses. In addition, the storability of even slightly affected fruits is limited, resulting in post-harvest losses and food waste along the supply chain. 

The objectives of SHEET (Sunburn and HEat prediction in canopies for Evolving a warning Tech solution) are

• to analyse the apparent temperature distribution at the fruit surface using terrestrial remote sensing for apples, sweet cherries and grapes,
• to validate findings on fruit damage taking into account the peak and the duration of the critical fruit temperature, and 
• to develop a prototype of a mobile app to provide risk information to stakeholders.

In this way, the project aims to strengthen the resilience of the plant-based food supply to global warming.

The project consortium consists of researchers and practitioners from different climatic regions: 

• Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering an Bioeconomy (coordination)
• University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
• Szent István University, Budapest, Hungary
• macio GmbH, Kiel, Germany
• HK Horticultural Knowledge srl, Bologna, Italy

Contact at ATB: Dr. Manuela Zude

The transnational project SHEET (Sunburn and HEat prediction in canopies for Evolving a warning Tech solution) is funded under the framework of ERA-Net ICT-AGRI FOOD. The funded projects are aimed to significantly contribute to enable digital technology solutions for a transition towards more sustainable and resilient agri-food systems.