Wilkin & Sons and Essex take flight in new collaboration using IoT and Computer Vision to boost strawberry crop

Fruit growers and preservers Wilkin & Sons have joined forces with academic experts at Essex to monitor and prevent disease of their strawberry crop using the latest computer vision techniques.

Wilkin & Sons who have farmed in Tiptree for nearly 300 years have won funding as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP), the UK Government led scheme helping businesses and universities collaborate.

The funding will help Wilkin & Sons and Essex combine research on plant disease with Internet of Things (IoT) and computer vision expertise to monitor strawberry crop disease by drone, with the goal of reducing inputs and improving yield.

Wilkin’s ambition is to innovate and become more productive in terms of yield for the strawberry growing arm of the business, while minimising any negative environmental impacts from their operations across their 850-acre farm.

The innovative system developed as part of the KTP will integrate wireless sensor networks and computer vision to help Wilkin & Sons work more proactively, enabling them to predict disease outbreaks and target infected crops quickly, should diseases like botrytis and mildew arise.

Wilkin & Sons looked to enhance monitoring of disease within the crop through solutions which are currently not available ‘off-the-shelf’. Essex is home to experts in computer vision, hyperspectral analysis and plant physiology that will build a bespoke system to solve their business need.

A full-time KTP Associate will be recruited and based at Wilkin’s Tiptree farm, to lead the research using cutting-edge hyperspectral analysis and computer vision technologies. They will be working with Wilkin’s farming General Manager to develop the novel disease monitoring and predication system.

Critically, the technology developed in the KTP can be replicated across Wilkin & Son’s other soft fruit crops, enhancing quality and helping them continue on their mission of reducing inputs and improving yield.

KTPs are Innovate UK’s flagship program for collaboration.They connect businesses and social enterprises across the UK with expertise, cutting-edge technology and research in our universities and link them up with ambitious graduate talent.