Farms & Farm Machinery #383

PRECISION AG
apple watch
A team developing
autonomous spraying
solutions for apple
orchards is finding
new ways to boost
productivity, by mixing
principles of agronomy
with the abilities of robots.
Andrew Hobbs reports
1. SwarmFarm Robotics is developing a
system to measure apple and pear tree
canopy sizes and flower density
2. The aim is to achieve timing for each
individual tree, to optimise spraying
We’re actually starting to
detect earlier and later
growth stages, so we can
understand the stage of
growth that the tree is
in or what percentage of
flowering it i .
The robots being developed by Queensland-based
SwarmFarm Robotics aren’t coming to take the jobs of apple
and pear growers or agronomists any time soon, Angus Hogan,
the company’s horticulture project lead, says.
“It is actually about supplementing the information they
already have... and then they can make better management
decisions,” he says.
Currently, orchard upkeep relies strongly on pruning and
spraying – first limiting the number of bud clusters before a
chemical and mechanical thinning process begins when the
trees flowe .
By managing crop load earlier there are significant benefi
to regulating natural flower load fluctuation in sequenti
years, a negative pattern called biennial bearing, and there are
improvements to fruit quality due to reducing nutrients wasted
on excess fruit that will ultimately be hand thinned.
This challenge has led to the creation of a three-year project by
Hort Innovation, as a strategic levy investment under the Hort
Innovation Apple and Pear Fund, to develop new technologies
to scan, map and spray an apple orchard during flowering
Chemical company Adama, hardware developer Bosch and the
University of New South Wales, Sydney, are all working alongside
SwarmFarm to deliver value in this project for industry.
The group is working to develop a set of new technologies
that will fit to standa d orchard equipment and also
SwarmFarm’s robots to measure apple tree canopy sizes
and flower densit , as well as a variable rate spraying system
to treat each blossom differently.
SHEPPARTON TRIAL
To do this, the group has been working on an apple orchard
near Shepparton, in Victoria, together with local agronomists
IK Caldwell, spray system companies Silvan Australia and
Raven and Green Atlas. In addition to developing new spray
technologies, SwarmFarm are delivering autonomous
operations to the orchard.
“We are excited to be partnered with Ben Wye Engineering
from South Australia, to develop a ‘robot-ready’ slasher that
interacts with our system through SwarmConnect, to monitor
implement performance and operate safely,” Hogan says.
When Hogan spoke with Farms & Farm Machinery in late
February, the group was midway through their first harvest
having picked the Gala apples, while the Pink Ladies will not be
picked until April.
While the group is still collecting data, Hogan says they have
noticed an early result of a 15 per cent fall in hand thinning time
required for the studied orchard rows, when compared to the
control sample.
“Now it’s a small sample this year, going into this season
we’ll be doing much larger trials to see if we can extend those
results,” he says. “We’ve got to further crunch those numbers
with the quality data, to see if there’s any overall impact or
negative impact… it was our first season in the e spraying and
we obviously learned quite a lot.”
INDIVIDUAL MONITORING
Hogan says the group, using the variable spraying system and
manual prescription maps developed through its work with IK
Caldwell, was able to develop unique management zones within
the study area.
“We were able to do variable rate application for both the top
and the bottom of the canopy independently with that system,
because we noticed there was different flowering timing from
the top and bottom of canopy.”
Hogan says this observation has led the group to look into ways
to bring better agronomic practices into the field by developing a
new approach called Variable Timing of Application (VTA).
“We’re not only detecting the number of flowers on the t ee,
because that’s not enough context to understand what’s
happening,” he says.
“We’re actually starting to detect earlier and later growth
stages, so we can understand the stage of growth that the tree
is in or what percentage of flowering it i .”
Being able to successfully map and program this into an
autonomous sprayer or spreader could, Hogan says, make a
major difference in the orchard’s yield.
“It’s not about doing two or three spraying applications a
year for the flower thinning but actually being able to come
in multiple times,” he says – noting that this is something
an autonomous sprayer can do, which a traditional orchard
sprayer could not.
“You might only be thinning 10 per cent of the trees (at any
one time) because they have flowe ed early, but if you get them
at the right time and you’re more confident with the chemical
response, then you’re going to be able to better manage
flowering and fruit load
“We’ve been talking to growers and agronomists heaps in
coming to this realisation and as soon as we mentioned getting
that timing right for each individual tree, every one of the
growers has said ‘that’s exactly what we need’,” he says.
What those growers and agronomists might ultimately do with
that information, he adds, is up to them.
“Their decision on when to spray at what stage of growth is
up to their background experience and their understanding of
previous management practices of the block and other factors…
so it’s not about replacing their decisions, but just giving them
the ability to treat parts of their block, which they haven’t been
able to do before,” Hogan says.
34 TradeFarmMachinery.com.au THE TRACTOR YOU WANT IS NOW EASIER TO FIND