Research & Development

Arid Agritec and bpi.visqueen are committed to continually improving the formulation of our polyethylene crop covers and making sure you, the grower, get the maximum benefit out of our full range of products. For that reason we fund ongoing joint research between universities in the and in universities and farms across the Middle-East using crops important in these markets. This ensures that we always give our customers the best and most up-to-date advice on how to get the most out of our products. 

We are always open to suggestion on future research that is of interest to the industry so please feel free to contact us if you’d like to discuss the issues that are important to your business. 

Dr Nigel D. Paul is a reader in Ecophysiology at Lancaster University . His research interests include the ecology of plant - pathogen and plant - herbivore interactions and plant responses to UV radiation in agriculture and horticulture. Over the past five years Dr Paul has been awarded both Department of Environment and Rural Affairs (Defra) and Horticultural Development Council (HDC) funding to investigate the application of responses to UV and blue light in both the control of crop diseases and crop yield and quality. Dr Paul is a member of the European Society for Photobiology, the American Phytopathological Society and the protected crops research assessment panel of the HDC. He is also a senior editor of the Phytopathology journal and a member of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) panel on the interactive effects of ozone depletion and climate change on health and the environment.

Professor Paul Hadley is a lecturer in Environmental Biology at the University of Reading . Professor Hadley works closely with Arid Agritec in our ongoing research program into the development of our heat control films. He, along with Dr Alex Wagstaffe, leads the research programs of two internationally funded Arid Agritec PhD students whose remit it is to make sure our customers have access to the most advanced heat control smart films in the world.    

Dr. Hany Abdalla Mohamed Sror is an Assistant Prof. of biochemistry within the Faculty of Agriculture at Ain Shams University , Cairo . Dr Sror has wide ranging biochemical focused research interests in fundamental photobiology as it applies to the use of SMART crop covers in Egyptian horticulture, crop cryoprotection and improvements in animal productivity. When not teaching at Ain Shams University Dr Sror also acts as the scientific consultant of Meitco Ltd who specialise in protected crop consultancy.

Mr Eslam Mohamadein Mohamed Elfadly is a research scientist with interests in protected cropping under state-of-the-art spectral filters. His bpi.visqueen funded PhD at Lancaster University (UK) and the National Research Centre () focuses on the effects of UV manipulating crop covers on aspects of yield and quality of crops of economic importance to the Egyptian horticultural industry.

Mr Wael M. Semida is an assistant lecturer within the horticultural department of Fayoum University in . He has a background in Horticultural Science and Horticultural Genetics and Biotechnology from the Universities of Cairo and the Mediterranean Agronomic Institute of Chania (M.A.I.Ch.), respectively. Wael is currently registered for a joint Ph.D. program between Reading University and Fayoum University looking at the influence of a range of our experimental heat control smart films on growth, development and shelf-life extension in both lettuce and strawberry.

  




Mr Hasan Albaba (Lancaster University, ) has both undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in Horticultural Science from the Omar Al-Mukhtar University in . Hassan’s PhD is funded by the Libyan government who are interested in how our range of smart films can help improve yields and quality in their developing horticultural industry. The specific area of research focuses on interactions between UV-B light and heat stress in tomato the commercial aim of which is to determine if it’s possible to improve crop heat tolerance using cost effective changes in spectral balance under a range of our smart films.