A new grower guide has been produced by HDC for the soft fruit industry outlining the options available for harvesting and recycling water. The new guide, entitled ‘Water harvesting and recycling in soft fruit’ provides comprehensive information on the range of systems available to growers for collecting water from tunnels, glasshouses and run-off water from soilless substrate grown crops. There is also very helpful information on how to treat collected water to remove physical and biological contaminants before re-using the water within a production system.
The guide was written by John Atwood of ADAS, who gathered information on the full range of water harvesting and recycling systems currently being used in the UK and also in the Netherlands. John visited both soft fruit growers and hardy nursery stock producers to examine the different methods currently employed and much of the information collected is presented in a series of case studies from commercial production sites, which will allow growers to weigh up the options that they may wish to choose for their own site.
HDC Fruit Knowledge Transfer manager Scott Raffle explained: “The guide was produced in response to grower requests for information on how best to collect water on soft fruit production units and how to re-use it within their system.” The specification for the guide was drawn up by Harriet Duncalfe (H&H Duncalfe) and Richard Harnden (Berry Gardens). Commenting on the guide, Harriet Duncalfe said,
“I am delighted with the publication and am confident that soft fruit growers will find it to be very useful when weighing up the options available to them for installing water harvesting and recycling systems. We are really grateful to all those businesses both in the UK and the Netherlands who were willing to share their information and practices with us”.
To obtain a copy of the guide, download it here or contact Louise Arculus on 02476 478661 or email: louise.arculus@hdc.ahdb.org.uk.
Source: HDC – HDC Publishes New Water Guide for Soft Fruit Growers
