Plant & Food Research’s Vaughn Bell has seen a lot of mealybugs in his time, but even he was stunned to see photos of infestations in Marlborough this past vintage.

One aspect of the Pinot Noir Programme is taking a reductionist approach to conduct research on individual berries and is set to make scientific history.

With funding of $10.3 million, the five-year Pinot Noir research programme is already breaking ground in terms of knowledge of this fickle grape and capricious wine.

Robotics has moved out of the talking stage and into the early doing stages, says the chief executive of Plant and Food Research, David Hughes.

Could robots soon replace humans in picking fruit? 

Two New Zealanders were named as winners in the recent trans-Tasman 2018 Growth Awards run by agriculture multinational Syngenta.

Plant & Food Research is doing an international review to definitively determine the ways in which the organisation and New Zealand horticulture are world-class, says chief executive David Hughes.

The leader of the team that cracked the kiwifruit’s PSA problem says a hunch on how to deal with the outbreak paid off. 

Within New Zealand Winegrowers’ Vineyard Ecosystems Programme, scientists are determined to discover if ground cover plants can help to reduce the adverse economic influence of grapevine leafroll virus.

It’s set to become the apple of eyes all over the world - a new apple variety launched on Tuesday by Fruitcraft, after being licensed the worldwide rights by Prevar Ltd.