In brief

Press, 11 July 1989, Page 31

In brief

Kiwifruit product From the Maftech biological modelling unit, at the Levin Horticultural Centre: a model with information to simulate a kiwifruit orchard. The object is to help orchardists decide how many fruit to leave on their vines. If they leave too few, the orchardists lose money. If too many, the fruit is too small, and this costs the orchardists, too. Dr Trevor Atkins, the head of the unit, has developed Kiwimod, which predicts income and costs for the orchardists based on the vine crop loading and the price schedule. “Orchard profitability can be predicted by taking into account effects such as variable cropload on return flower and vegetable growth, and subse-

quent thinning and pruning costs,” Dr Atkins said, the Press Association reports. Satellite watch A new terminal will allow the Aussat satellite service to monitor remote natural resources from early next year. The new Standard C Modac terminal can transmit data on phenomena such as ground water, river levels, and weather, from remote sites, via satellite to a customer’s premises for monitoring and analysis. Acorn Unix Acorn, the maker of the Archimedes, and before that, the BBC, has announced a Unix work station, the R 140. An MSDOS emulator is available for it, and there are conversion packages which will allow the Rl4O to run dBASE and 1-2-3.