Retail and wholesale monitoring continued over the Christmas period, with only a short pause for public holidays. This work will continue for the duration of the project, with watermelon, rockmelon and honeydew samples assessed every two weeks in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane for Brix, acidity, firmness and skin condition.
Additional testing is underway in Melbourne using non-destructive (NIR) devices. This will help the project team build a data set that will support the development later in the project of practical protocols for using NIR devices on-farm.
Supply chain monitoring is also ongoing, with data uploaded to the project website as results become available. Growers can view results close to real time via the Melons Australia website. Individual reports continue to be provided to growers where their fruit can be identified, and the feedback has been positive, with many growers saying they are finding the reports useful.
The project team plans to recommence on-farm maturity measurement and harvest prediction work in southern growing regions in February, with some NIR measurements included to assess its practicality and performance on-farm.
Gerard Piper, one of the project team in Brisbane, testing Brix levels in Honeydew.
