The increasing cost of production and difficulty sourcing and training a large seasonal labour force continues to dog large sections of the horticulture industry, prompting a Glass House Mountains strawberry farmer and an agricultural engineer to develop robotic harvesting technology.
Caboolture-based Ray Daniels and Rudi Bartels say they established Magnificent Pty Ltd in Queensland to address this challenge. Both are acknowledged experts in their field, putting their heads together a find a solution to the problems posed by an itinerant workforce.
There’s also the issue of increasing imports from California, currently being boosted by the high Australian dollar. These imports effectively cap the strawberry price and reduce the average returns earned by growers.
Nevertheless, both men retain a vision of being able to harvest produce around-the-clock, irrespective of the weather, plus meet the challenges of delivering high quality produce to customers. Underlying these concerns are labour costs that usually work out at more than half of a grower’s total production costs.
Magnificent had been concentrating on developing a field harvester, acknowledging that finding all the fruit through the foliage was difficult to do without causing damage. This problem was compounded by the crop foliage changes through the season, also between cultivars.
The upshot is that the emphasis has changed to hydroponic production in a greenhouse where the foliage can be more effectively managed. This approach enables the automation of both picking and packing, thereby reducing the labour requirement by 95 percent.
At this stage it’s worth explaining that Ray Daniels is also fine-tuning a “vertical” production system that sees plants positioned on rotating banks of trays that are chain-driven to position them ready for the robot to begin its picking duties. Fruit now hang beneath the crop.
At a stroke this allows any mechanised harvesting system working its way up and down the greenhouse, courtesy of a fixed track arrangement, to concentrate on picking fruit rather than foliage.
This approach is believed to be the first time such a venture has been undertaken on a large scale with the robotic side of the initiative using computer vision programmed to selectively harvest individual strawberries by stem picking. As a result, there is no contact with the fruit.
“We’ve got the core technologies working pretty well now,” Rudi Bartels said.
His passion for helping to slash a farmer’s harvest production costs, also overcoming on-going labour management issues, is shared by local producer, Ray Daniels.
Conceding that an earlier field robot not only had to contend with weather influences but also paddock variations, he said this was the reason why the switch to growing strawberries hydroponically, in the controlled environment of a green house, had been made.
“It allows us to use mains power supply, compressed air, also a lot of other benefits as against relying on battery-power in the field robot,” Ray Daniels said.
The new growing system is almost up and running with planting about to go ahead. The ‘workhorse,’ a high-speed commercial Japanese robot, is in the final stages of being readied for work once the crops mature.
The special electronic picking head, originally installed on the venture’s field robot, shortly will be programmed to undertake the delicate picking process within the next few weeks. Down-the-track the expectation is of the robotic harvester allowing picked produce to be delivered straight into punnets. The idea here is to not only further trim the wage bill but also remove the need for a packing shed.
Ray Daniels makes an interesting observation on his latest venture’s commercial credentials, noting that most farm investment returns vary between five and 15 percent.
“But we’re looking to get a 30 per cent return based on the new growing system’s crop quality that should have us producing strawberries for 48 weeks each year,” he said.
Traditionally, strawberry growers must rely on a season that extends between five to seven months based on their geographic location and on seasonal conditions.
“We are looking to produce fruit on a year-round basis,” he added.
The previously-mentioned 5.5m tall rotating growing system seeks to vastly improve the yields per square metre by utilising the space immediately above what would otherwise be rows of soil-grown plants.
“Strawberries grown in the paddock usually yield between 30t/ha to 60t/ha,” Ray Daniels said.
“Inside a greenhouse, that rises to 140t/ha but using the vertical growing system we hope to achieve 1300t/ha,” he added.
Once the system is up and running the robot will traverse down the greenhouse, returning when the next tier of fruit to be harvested is lowered, ready for picking.
The entire system is at a prototype stage for the moment with the focus now on producing large scale crops hydroponically.
“That approach, including using hydroponics to feed plants, has been used for commercial production in the Netherlands for the past 30 years,” Ray Daniels said.
“But we are actually going to be growing our plants in Growbags containing coco peat.”
The idea is that the Growbags will be “harvested” during the three or four-month growing season, later re-positioned in a nursery, ready to be re-introduced to the harvesting system a week or so later - ahead of the picking season.
All this translates to being able to grow three crops a year, rather than relying on growing just the one crop in a traditional paddock growing system, which currently is the case.
“We still have to make the system work and we are fortunate to have received funding from Horticulture Australia,” Ray Daniels said.
“It’s a matching arrangement whereby we have to put in half of the funds, too,” he added.
“Staff are paid by the kilogram picked so there are constantly issues of fruit bruising and immature fruit being picked, so a lot of management time is spent trying to maintain fruit quality,” Ray Daniels said.
The robotic harvester will, it is envisaged, alleviate this problem, giving customers a consistently high quality of fruit by never making contact with the fruit and by shortening the time to fast-chill produce.
Food safety issues are also reduced with the use of the robotic harvester since there is no human contact with the strawberries, thus minimising the risk of microbial contamination.
“We are also working towards the harvester being able to segregate fruit with half ripe fruit picked into punnets for export, while fully mature fruit are picked for the domestic market,” Mr Daniels said.
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Caboolture-based Ray Daniels and Rudi Bartels say they established Magnificent Pty Ltd in Queensland to address this challenge. Both are acknowledged experts in their field, putting their heads together a find a solution to the problems posed by an itinerant workforce.
Ray Daniels of Sunray Strawberries, Wamuran, inside the greenhouse with his vertical growing system for strawberries
There’s also the issue of increasing imports from California, currently being boosted by the high Australian dollar. These imports effectively cap the strawberry price and reduce the average returns earned by growers.
Nevertheless, both men retain a vision of being able to harvest produce around-the-clock, irrespective of the weather, plus meet the challenges of delivering high quality produce to customers. Underlying these concerns are labour costs that usually work out at more than half of a grower’s total production costs.
Magnificent had been concentrating on developing a field harvester, acknowledging that finding all the fruit through the foliage was difficult to do without causing damage. This problem was compounded by the crop foliage changes through the season, also between cultivars.
The upshot is that the emphasis has changed to hydroponic production in a greenhouse where the foliage can be more effectively managed. This approach enables the automation of both picking and packing, thereby reducing the labour requirement by 95 percent.
At this stage it’s worth explaining that Ray Daniels is also fine-tuning a “vertical” production system that sees plants positioned on rotating banks of trays that are chain-driven to position them ready for the robot to begin its picking duties. Fruit now hang beneath the crop.
At a stroke this allows any mechanised harvesting system working its way up and down the greenhouse, courtesy of a fixed track arrangement, to concentrate on picking fruit rather than foliage.
This approach is believed to be the first time such a venture has been undertaken on a large scale with the robotic side of the initiative using computer vision programmed to selectively harvest individual strawberries by stem picking. As a result, there is no contact with the fruit.
“We’ve got the core technologies working pretty well now,” Rudi Bartels said.
His passion for helping to slash a farmer’s harvest production costs, also overcoming on-going labour management issues, is shared by local producer, Ray Daniels.
Conceding that an earlier field robot not only had to contend with weather influences but also paddock variations, he said this was the reason why the switch to growing strawberries hydroponically, in the controlled environment of a green house, had been made.
“It allows us to use mains power supply, compressed air, also a lot of other benefits as against relying on battery-power in the field robot,” Ray Daniels said.
The new growing system is almost up and running with planting about to go ahead. The ‘workhorse,’ a high-speed commercial Japanese robot, is in the final stages of being readied for work once the crops mature.
The special electronic picking head, originally installed on the venture’s field robot, shortly will be programmed to undertake the delicate picking process within the next few weeks. Down-the-track the expectation is of the robotic harvester allowing picked produce to be delivered straight into punnets. The idea here is to not only further trim the wage bill but also remove the need for a packing shed.
Ray Daniels makes an interesting observation on his latest venture’s commercial credentials, noting that most farm investment returns vary between five and 15 percent.
“But we’re looking to get a 30 per cent return based on the new growing system’s crop quality that should have us producing strawberries for 48 weeks each year,” he said.
Traditionally, strawberry growers must rely on a season that extends between five to seven months based on their geographic location and on seasonal conditions.
“We are looking to produce fruit on a year-round basis,” he added.
The previously-mentioned 5.5m tall rotating growing system seeks to vastly improve the yields per square metre by utilising the space immediately above what would otherwise be rows of soil-grown plants.
“Strawberries grown in the paddock usually yield between 30t/ha to 60t/ha,” Ray Daniels said.
“Inside a greenhouse, that rises to 140t/ha but using the vertical growing system we hope to achieve 1300t/ha,” he added.
Once the system is up and running the robot will traverse down the greenhouse, returning when the next tier of fruit to be harvested is lowered, ready for picking.
The entire system is at a prototype stage for the moment with the focus now on producing large scale crops hydroponically.
“That approach, including using hydroponics to feed plants, has been used for commercial production in the Netherlands for the past 30 years,” Ray Daniels said.
“But we are actually going to be growing our plants in Growbags containing coco peat.”
The idea is that the Growbags will be “harvested” during the three or four-month growing season, later re-positioned in a nursery, ready to be re-introduced to the harvesting system a week or so later - ahead of the picking season.
All this translates to being able to grow three crops a year, rather than relying on growing just the one crop in a traditional paddock growing system, which currently is the case.
“We still have to make the system work and we are fortunate to have received funding from Horticulture Australia,” Ray Daniels said.
“It’s a matching arrangement whereby we have to put in half of the funds, too,” he added.
“Staff are paid by the kilogram picked so there are constantly issues of fruit bruising and immature fruit being picked, so a lot of management time is spent trying to maintain fruit quality,” Ray Daniels said.
The robotic harvester will, it is envisaged, alleviate this problem, giving customers a consistently high quality of fruit by never making contact with the fruit and by shortening the time to fast-chill produce.
Food safety issues are also reduced with the use of the robotic harvester since there is no human contact with the strawberries, thus minimising the risk of microbial contamination.
“We are also working towards the harvester being able to segregate fruit with half ripe fruit picked into punnets for export, while fully mature fruit are picked for the domestic market,” Mr Daniels said.
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