DON'T count on seeing a robot making its way through an orchard picking fruit any time soon.
A technology panel session at the Citrus Technical Forum 2022 discussed some of the developments growers could expect to see in coming years.
Among those, automated picking may not be on the near horizon.
The panel, made up of participants schooled in drones, satellites and autonomous machinery and spray technology, featured:
- Yoav Yichie, Aerobotics;
- Andrew Robson, University of New England;
- Cam Clifford, AME Group.
While various topics were discussed, including farm connectivity and digital crop visualisation, it was the possibility of labour-saving autonomous fruit picking which drew comments and questions.
Mr Clifford said he was yet to see a system that was anywhere near commercially viable.
He said the gripping and fruit recognition abilities were there but not the speed.
He cited the New Zealand implementation of apple-picking robots in the Hawke's Bay region which were only operating at about one eighth of the speed of a human picker.
Mr Robson said he thought some developments were being adopted more but there were some major deterients.
"Cost is a huge issue; and practicality and trust, that it's going to do it right," he said.
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"You need a driver for adoption and the lack of staff or people on farm at the moment for us in Australia is a major driver at the moment that would potentially drive the fast-tracking of some of these technologies."
One element often suggested to improve robotic picking has been orchard structure or the use of trellised trees.
Even progress on this front wasn't an automatic assurance bots would be seen in paddocks, according to Mr Clifford.
"If I might, to be brutally honest, with tree architecture in citrus as it is today I can't see an autonomous picking operation coming in any time soon," he said.
"Where we see the development of entirely trellised type orchards and realistically from a mechanical perspective, that isn't where it is going to be."
Responding to that was audience member Steven Falivene, NSW DPI.
Mr Falivene was one of the instigators of the citrus trellis production trial at the NSW DPI Dareton Primary Industries Institute which has been established in blocks of 16-year-old Atwood and Hockney navels stumped to about 80cm.
He said while the trial has been slow in its establishment, there were hopes robotic pickers would achieve the same rate as a human on the trellised block within two years.
Citrus Australia chief executive officer Nathan Hancock expressed his concern that many of the prototype pickers he'd seen appeared very flimsy and were "not robust enough".
He agreed that commercial autonomous picking was a long way off.
He said though that there could be a place for autonomous vehicles taking over standard tasks such as slashing and spraying, which could reduce labour costs now.
"They may just not be hitting the Holy Grail of picking yet," he said.
Mr Robson said the adoption of autonomous devices within Australian agriculture was still very low.
"It's not about the gizmo; it's about the application," he said.
The panel also chewed over the increasing number of on-farm management apps and software programs.
Mr Robson questioned whether the trend of having multiple sensors monitoring various elements on the farm was putting growers any further ahead.
Mr Clifford agreed.
"You've got data coming in from every angle but what's it all good for?" Mr Clifford said.
Mr Yichie said developing technology to work within an agricultural environment was never a quick or easy exercise.
"That's what we like about a challenge. If it were easy we'd all be accounts," Mr Yichie said.
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