Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/744696
34 NOVEMBER 2016 GOOD FRUIT GROWER www.goodfruit.com Jim Doornink, a longtime grower in Washington's Yakima Valley and board member of the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission. Often, technol- ogies developed for other industries with greater likelihood for widespread adoption are refined for agriculture, he said, such as the sensor technologies and electronics that were adapted for packing lines. "Then, somewhere in there you have to convince the vendor, who is oftentimes in opposition to the idea, that there's a million units that can be sold, enough that they should make the prod- uct," he said. It's also taken years for the technology — the cameras, sensors and engineering — to catch up with the idea of an auto- mated apple harvester. Pursuing the goal Three years ago, a researcher for SRI International, an independent, nonprofit research and development organization with headquarters in California's Silicon Valley, began a research project to develop a robotic apple harvester. That researcher, Curt Salisbury, grew up on the edge of southeast Washington's apple country and saw the potential. A consultant to SRI's ventures group, Steere joined the team in spring 2015 and, after about six months together, he and Salisbury spun off a new company with a goal of commercializing the still- under-wraps technology. They launched Abundant Robotics five months ago with investment capital largely from investors in Silicon Valley. Steere noted the U.S. tree fruit indus- try is extremely sophisticated in multiple ways: horticulturally, operationally and in the types of available data that are typical of well-managed orchards. "The better those management practices are, the better equipped people are to both make decisions about what automation can help with and to implement them," he said. Abundant Robotics has worked closely with a cross section of the apple industry, both in the U.S. and abroad, to under- stand the needs and learn how to best apply the technology to meet multiple demands. The engineering requires a design that's reliable, hits a certain cost and performance targets, and that single piece of engineering must integrate and function alongside a lot of other systems. "We've spent a lot of time in the last couple of years just trying to learn about different orchard systems and then trying to understand what systems work best," Steere said. In other agricultural systems, if an automated harvester gets to the point where damage to the plant or the pro- duce is minimal, then automation has happened. "But for all the sectors where the produce can't withstand that kind of rough treatment, there's been very little automation," he said. "There's this perception that ag is slower to adopt new technologies, but I don't see that." Therein lies another challenge. Abundant Robotics isn't ready to offer any specific recommendations yet to growers to prepare their orchards for automation (see "Pushing their pluck" on page 36), and despite the potential bene- fits, many people are wary of change. "If the old system is working reason- ably well, the new system that is going to replace it is going to have to work signifi- cantly better," Doornink said. "You don't change to get the same effect. You will make the incremental change if you can do it faster, better, cheaper." Growers may be forced to adapt to the changes around them though, he said. As demographics shift around the world, the labor pool U.S. growers have tapped for the last 50 years is changing. It seems natural to bring in some automation. "This project is critically timed. I don't think in the history of tree fruit, I don't think there's another time this could have been accomplished," Doornink said. "Everything is just right — the need is here, computers have developed suf- ficiently, and the industry is prosperous and can make a change like this. "It's a great time for this to happen," he said. "Now we just have to wait and see." • "If the old system is working reasonably well, the new system that is going to replace it is going to have to work significantly better. You don't change to get the same effect. You will make the incremental change if you can do it faster, better, cheaper." —Jim Doornink Trellising Solutions Search "GrippleTV USA" on YouTube to view our installation videos. To find a Gripple representative near you, go to: www.gripple.com/us NEW! 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