Evidence Project Final Report

8. As a guide this report should be no longer than 20 sides of A4. This report is to provide Defra with details of the outputs of the research project for internal purposes; to meet the terms of the contract; and to allow Defra to publish details of the outputs to meet Environmental Information Regulation or Freedom of Information obligations. This short report to Defra does not preclude contractors from also seeking to publish a full, formal scientific report/paper in an appropriate scientific or other journal/publication. Indeed, Defra actively encourages such publications as part of the contract terms. The report to Defra should include:

 the objectives as set out in the contract;

 the extent to which the objectives set out in the contract have been met;

 details of methods used and the results obtained, including statistical analysis (if appropriate);

 a discussion of the results and their reliability;

 the main implications of the findings;

 possible future work; and

 any action resulting from the research (e.g. IP, Knowledge Exchange).

The following work was delivered under a number of project headings:

1. Maintenance and Housing

• 
  A full and robust spray program was applied to the collection on an annual basis. Collections were regularly monitored for pests, disease and/or general health problems and repropagation was carried out where replacement trees were needed. A scab prediction model based on local weather was used for the apples, and farm management software was employed to schedule and record spray applications. Good control of pests and disease was achieved and all spray programs were carried out in accordance with current Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Good Agricultural Practice standards;
  
• 
  Additionally, plant health inspections were carried out by Fera annually and general farm management inspections were also carried out biannually by representatives of the NFC Advisory Committee. A small number of trees were found by Fera to be infected with Apricot Chlorotic Leafroll Phytoplasma (ACLP) and the trees were removed under notice (see 1.1). Fireblight infections were routinely identified, removed and burnt. The embargo over the Prunus collection was continued (and was extended to include the cherries on the basis of the ACLP [despite a fully clear test for plum pox in 2012]). Discussions were initiated with Fera on approaches to address this but no way forward was agreed before the end of the contract; this will be a matter to continue to engage Fera to address in the future;
  
• 
  Small scale repropagation capabilities (for replacing individual trees) were established on site (for further details, see 1.2). Tree fruit were repropagated by budding and/or grafting. Using these capabilities, attempts were made to repropagate gooseberries by both hardwood and softwood cuttings (by use of a heated bin) and by grafting onto redcurrant rootstocks but this was largely unsuccessful and a further assessment of the overall status and value of the bush fruit collection will be needed in the future;
  
• 
  Repropagation of the apple collection was initiated on a larger scale. Graftwood was initially collected from approximately 1,400 accessions, which were subsequently propagated by a commercial nursery in Holland before planting out at Brogdale. The majority (approximately 500) of the remaining accessions were subsequently collected and sent to the same nursery and await delivery to Brogdale during winter 2014. 135 accessions failed to produce suitable graftwood and further efforts to propagate these will be made in the near future. Land was cleared and prepared for planting and the trees in the new collection were brought closer together to reduce land usage and spraying costs in agreement with Defra and the NFC Advisory Committee;
  
• 
  Farm infrastructure was maintained with windbreaks trimmed, machinery serviced and sprayers certified. Plans were developed on potential land use requirements for the repropagation of the collections in the future (see Appendix 1);
  
• 
  Fruit from the collections was harvested annually. Fallen fruit and leaves were cleared as far as possible to reduce the build-up of pests and diseases. Pruning was carried out annually. The collection was pruned in two stages to hold back dormant graftwood for supply; the tree to be held back for supply was alternated annually for each accession;
  
• 
  Meteorological data continued to be collected, and were supplied to the Met Office. Data collected included: dry bulb, wet bulb, max/min temp., grass minimum temp., rainfall, state of ground, sunshine, visibility, wind direction, total cloud, present weather and snow (where appropriate). Further data were also supplied as part of the Met Office ‘British Isotopes in Rainfall Project’ and additional data were collected as part of the Met Office OPAL Climate survey project; ash deposits were also sampled and supplied to aid with a study of the Grímsvötn volcanic eruption by the British Geological Survey, Met Office and Edinburgh University. Discussions were had with the Met Office around the possibility to automate data collection at Brogdale; it was established that this would require a Met Office registered automatic station supplied by them but the Met Office could not afford this;
  
• 
  An Accession/Deaccession Committee was established to allow further consideration of the development of the collections. An overall policy for development of the collection as a component of the UK’s overall fruit genetic resources was established by this committee (and is included as Appendix 2);
  
• 
  A small number of individual accessions were brought into the collection, from the Observation Plot; larger sets of Prunus and Malus germplasm were accessed into the collection from the genebanks sited at East Malling as these were reported to be at risk. Accessed material was specifically selected for its potential value in breeding. These accessions added further genetic diversity and valuable traits to the collection (accessions are listed in 1.4);
  
• 
  A number of further accessions were proposed for accession from the Observation Plot, deaccessed and/or proposed for deacession based on the fingerprinting work (as detailed in the appended assessments of the Pear and Cobnut collections [Appendices 3 and 4]) and a small number of varieties were lost from the collections (detailed in 1.4);
  
• 
  Graftwood, budwood and a range of other research material was supplied to a wide group of users. Material was supplied under standard Material Transfer Agreements (sMTAs) in line with the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA) [material supplied is detailed in 1.5 and 1.6 ]. A clear material supply policy was developed to help distinguish amongst the wide range of users, and uses of the collections (and is included as Appendix 5);
  
• 
  Numerous researchers visited the collections to collect data, materials and/or visit the archives (summarised in 1.8).
  

Further details relating to the above are summarised below (with additional detail included in appendices and annual reports):

1.1 Pest and Disease notifications

Annual growing season inspections were carried out by Defra Plant Health (Fera) and the following accessions were noted to be affected by specific diseases:

Fireblight1			Plum Pox 2/3			ACLP 2/4/5
2008
27_81	Apple	Jacquin
36_105	Apple	Franc Roseau
42_67/8	Apple	Champ Gaillard
2_22	Perry Pear	Barnet
4_32	Orn. Malus	M. Yunnanensis
2009
47_63	Apple	Marie Joseph	7_22	Plum	Kea	1_3	Apricot	Catherina
5_1	Cider	Pethyre	20_12	Plum	Pond's Seedling	1_11	Apricot	Old Cape
			28_6	Plum	Laxton's Ideal	1_13	Apricot	Puget Gold
			3_10	Ornamental	Prunus posegaca	1_18	Apricot	Royale
						2_2	Orn. Prunus	Klara Meyer
						3_6	Orn. Prunus	Beni-shi-don
						3_9	Orn. Prunus	Prunus posegaca
						3_10	Orn. Prunus	Prunus posegaca
						3_3	Orn. Prunus	Nigra
2010
						3_3	Plum	Vanier
						3_4	Plum	Vanier
						5_17	Japanese Plum	Great Yellow
						5_18	Japanese Plum	Great Yellow
						3_2	Plum	Friar
						5_16	Cherry Plum	Yellow Cherry Plum
2011
2012
19_16	Pear	Emile d'Heyst
2013
						1_8	Apricot	Farmingdale

¹In 2008 and 2009, further, more frequent inspections were made by staff on site and numerous small infections of fireblight were observed on specific accessions which were removed and burnt (none were observed in 2010 or 2011).

²In addition to the trees in the collections, plum pox was found in 4 trees on the remainder of the site in 2009, similarly 2 trees in trials outside of the collections were found with ACLP.

³Full site tests for plum pox were carried out in 2009 and 2012. No infections were identified in 2012.

⁴A sample of trees surrounding those found to be infected with ACLP in 2010 was tested in 2011 along with a full set of all apricots as many were deemed to look sick by Fera; all tests were negative.

⁵All apricots in the collections were tested for ACLP in 2012; no infection was detected but a single tree in a trial plot outside of the collection tested positive (having been brought in recently from a reputable European nursery).

All trees found positive for plum pox or ACLP were removed under notice.

1.2 Repropagation – tree fruit

The following numbers of accessions were repropagated on site by grafting to replace missing or unhealthy trees:

	Apple collection (including cider and ornamental)	Pear collection (including quince)	Cherry collection (including ornamental)	Plum collection including ornamental)
2009	47	23	19
2010	24	19	11	16
2011	27	7	11	6
2012	27	17	14	10
2013	12	20	15	7
2014	30	27	7	13
Total	167	113	77	52

In addition, 21 accessions from the vine collection were grafted in 2010 to fill gaps in the collection.