Charlie Wu of Orchard Robotics, middle proper, talks in regards to the firm’s newest imaginative and prescient system in Zillah, Washington, with a tour group from the Netherlands visiting Washington farms throughout a Washington Tree Fruit Analysis Fee academic change tour on July 9. (TJ Mullinax/Good Fruit Grower)
Across the globe, growers are searching for new applied sciences to make fruit manufacturing extra labor-efficient.
This week, a tour group of growers, crop advisors and expertise builders from the Netherlands visited Washington to match notes. The journey, coordinated by the Washington Tree Fruit Analysis Fee, is a part of its ongoing collaboration with the Dutch fruit business.
The tour included visits to Washington State College analysis farms, progressive growers and tools producers.
At an Allan Bros. ranch within the Yakima Valley, course of enchancment supervisor Matt Miles hosted the group to speak about forays into precision crop load administration and the way imaginative and prescient applied sciences are creating instruments to assist.
“We’re all making an attempt to unravel the identical issues,” stated Miles, a member of the analysis fee board.
Whereas expertise was the first focus, growers additionally in contrast notes on pear psylla administration, a high problem in each international locations, and on soil well being analysis, which is rising as an vital challenge in each areas.
“It’s good to absorb a special surroundings and see various things,” stated Peter Frans de Jong, a horticulture researcher at Wageningen College and Analysis within the Netherlands. “We will be taught from one another, that’s the cool factor about this collaboration.”
Try our pear challenge in September for extra protection of the tour and its horticultural and expertise change.
—by Kate Prengaman
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