The fresh-cut and ready-to-eat salad processing industry is the major vector for salad consumption growth in Australia . The industry seasonally experiences unacceptable levels of foreign body customer complaints, the vast majority of which are categorised as insect contamination.

The objective of this project was to gather data around the benefits and limitations of using floating crop covers to determine whether they were an effective means of reducing insect populations in field grown crops. The project would further explore other potential crop production benefits.

The project found that floating crop covers are highly effective at reducing insect infestation and insect damage in field grown baby-leaf salad crops, and insect population reductions of 89% have been demonstrated. The covers provide further benefits of excluding most wind-borne foreign body contamination, reducing ground moisture loss, providing a level of protection from weather induced damage, and reducing the length of growth cycles during cooler winter and shoulder seasons