American Vegetable Grower: mechanization of farm equipment, The

Whether it be robots, electronic eyes, or simply technology that makes harvesting more efficient, back-breaking harvest labor is in for some big changes. _. . . _ .

DIGITAL lenses scan a row and within seconds find a ripe, red target. Long, jointed, metal extensions lower and close around the fleshy beefsteak tomato, and with a slight tug and twist, pull it from the vine. The mechanical arm lifts, extends, and gently deposits the product into the harvesting bin.

It may be a little far-fetched to expect robots modeled after humans - C-3PO comes to mind to harvest, sort, and package vegetables in what equates to an outdoor vegetable factory. But considering our track record in developing machinery over the past century, some engineers haven't ruled out the potential for robotics to become a common feature on farm equipment in the next 15 years.

Sink Or Swim

The factors that will decide the fate of robotics are affordability and increased productivity - without compromising the fruit quality consumers have come to expect. But the underlying driver in robotics research is the availability of farm labor.

"It just seems it's harder and harder to find people who will go out into the field to pick," says Doug Ahrens, sales for Oxbo International Corp., Clear Lake, WI.

Oxbo specializes in harvesters for fresh market sweet corn, processed sweet corn, green beans, and greens. Ahrens says the company's corn puller, for example, will provide handpicked quality and is far more efficient because it eliminates the people in the field.

Finding A Niche

A night at the blackjack table may prove less risky than waiting to see if your labor shows up during harvest season, says Claude Brown, president of Ag Industrial Manufacturing, Inc. (AIM), Lodi, CA.

Brown's 21-year-old business is based largely on mechanized grape harvesting. The rest is made up of custom designs for various industrial and agricultural machines with a very selective market. The company's radish harvester is one example.

Lifting them by the tops, the radish harvester picks eight rows of radishes at a time and conveys each individual row up an incline into the machine. As the radishes pass over the incline, they are sized, rooted, and topped, then stored in a bin.

"The problem is, you get about 8000 pounds every 20 minutes," Brown says. "How many radishes did you eat last week? It is a niche specialty market. You don't make 1000 of those machines."

Brown agrees the technology is available for robotic harvesting, "but speed and costs are not there." Nevertheless, he anticipates that mechanized farm equipment will see big growth in the next 15 years, due to labor shortages. Brown predicts it will happen for tree fruit first, but says eventually total mechanization for most vegetable operations will be necessary in order to stay competitive with cheaper imports.

No Room For C-3PO

Don't expect future mechanical harvesting equipment to look like humans or be entirely independent of human control, but the expectations of what they might be able to do are probably not too far off the mark.

For example, some engineers are

leaning toward the concept of a onestop machine that harvests, sorts, packs, and cools right in the field. Brown says AIM is involved in a similar project for some vegetable crops.

Another concept, Machine Vision, which is currently used in sorting mechanisms, has potential to be used more in harvesting and other processes.

Machine Vision automation systems combine computer intelligence with cameras lighting, and software to sort food products. The system can detect select shades and colors to discriminate between good- and poor-quality product and ripe or immature product.

The hope is to incorporate computer-intelligent vision with special sensors into a harvester, allowing the machine to make quality-control decisions at harvest, based on appearance, weight, and possibly even scent.

"There are enormous opportunities," says Ron Koch, manager of applications development for SRC Vision, a company based in Medford, OR, that manufactures Machine Vision automated sorters.

SRC's sorters for the vegetable industry are primarily used for processing potatoes for french fries, but they also have sold sorters for cut corn, peas, green beans, sliced or diced carrots, and diced tomatoes.

With the help of Machine-Vision automation, Koch sees potential for designing automated harvesters that could decide where the stem or vine is and pick pieces with a mechanical hand.

"I think it can be done," he says. "But it's going to take a wizard of a head that replaces the hand-eye coordination."

Still, Koch says we have already overcome the biggest obstacle in making robotics work for us. "We've broken through now into processing power that is enormous. That really is no longer a limitation - and that was a real barrier before." Koch adds that within 10 years he expects to see dramatic improvement in what mechanization is available and what really works.

On the other hand, what may actually work could be enhancing workers with this technology and not recreating human movements.

"I think what we're going to still see is the augmentation of the human, rather than emulating the human, in some of these areas," says Larry Huggins, president of American Society of Agricultural Engineers. "We're also going to see cruder methods than the robotic system."

Humans will still be running the show, but they will have machines and tools to greatly increase their productivity and reduce some of the more back-breaking elements of farming, Huggins says.

Robotic harvesters in general have existed on an experimental basis for years in research and university labs, but we haven't reached the point for them to be practical in the field, he says.

"There's no question that you can do it and make it function, but the challenge is to do it in ways that can have the speed and throughput that yoL need and the sophistication and dexter. ity that's required," Huggins says.

That means the value of the individual vegetable or fruit had better be sufficient enough to justify the cost and time involved, he says. The examples Huggins gives are watermelon, muskmelon, and tree fruit.

"The other things - when you get to tomatoes and cucumbers - the value of an individual piece is not as high and therefore will use what I would cal 'cruder' methods of harvesting," Huggins says. "For example, in tomatoes, we're primarily harvesting those with varieties that mature at a given time. You go through the field, do a onceover harvest and it's gone."