Apple · Canada · BBC Technology
Some such meters use infrared light, meaning there's no need to cut into the fruit to take measurements
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She and her students have come up with a millimetre wave-based ripeness detector, external that could be used by farmers, or even customers searching for perfectly ripe fruit in shops.
Key facts
- The company says, "their forecasts land within 10% of actual picked volume one week out (90% accurate) and within 17% three weeks out (83% accurate)
- Ben Palone is senior director of automation and commercialisation at Western Growers, an association that represents farmers in the western US
- It was like 38C… it's not safe for people to work in that heat," recalls Joel Carter at Okanagan Specialty Fruits
- Okanagan Specialty Fruits is already experimenting with cameras from a Canadian firm called Vivid Machines
Summary
When the first day of the apple harvest rolled around in Washington State last year, the fruit was ripe and the pickers were ready, but the weather had other ideas. "It was like 38C… it's not safe for people to work in that heat," recalls Joel Carter at Okanagan Specialty Fruits. He says that artificial intelligence (AI) models that forecast ideal harvest dates, taking into account the weather, would be useful. Carter's company has more than 1,250 acres of apple orchards in Washington, and the fruit is grown for sliced apple portions, often sold to hotels and schools, for example. But planning a harvest is tricky.