Apple Best Practice Guide moves to NIAB.com

The horticultural industry’s digital ‘Apple Best Practice Guide’ has a new home at niab.com.

Free and available to all, the online Guide, hosted by the crop research organisation NIAB, contains a vast volume of best practice information on commercial apple production. Topics covered include ‘Agronomy’, with information on flowering, fruit set, thinning and fruit growth, ‘Pest and Disease’ identification and control with integrated pest management, and ‘Post-harvest Information’, including storage disorders and rots.

First published by MAFF in paper form in the late 1990s, the Guide was written and compiled by a number of leading experts in the apple industry from research and advisory organisations including the then Horticultural Research International at East Malling, the Fruit Advisory Services Team, ADAS and Worldwide Fruit/Qualytech.

To ensure that the Guide could be updated with the latest best practice information, it was soon converted to a digital format and hosted by the Horticultural Development Council (HDC) and later by the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB). However, with the discontinuation of the horticultural and fruit levy, the Guide needed a new home to ensure it remained active. An agreement has been reached between AHDB and NIAB to transfer it to its new home on niab.com and it is now live and free to view.

NIAB’s Knowledge Exchange Manager Scott Raffle, commented, “It was important for apple growers and agronomists that the Guide be maintained. Transferring it to NIAB allows us to keep it updated, especially when results of apple research projects are delivered. The pest and disease information, together with integrated pest management content, changes most rapidly and I make it a priority to keep this refreshed whenever changes are required.”

The ‘Apple Best Practice Guide’ can be found on niab.com, via Membership/NIAB Fruit.