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Friday, 28 September 2012

Fruit Robot.

The fruit industry has been for years trying to get around the idea of picking ripe fruit without damaging plants to give prepared bumper yields. This is done without relying on twenty four hour supervision as each plant is unique in terms of things like vigour. So it must be treated uniquely during pruning by delicate human touch said Fetzmann of Domaine Louis Latour. But I can see a robot assisting in the pre-pruning in November, as work crews prefer to finish in March. A machine like this could be really useful in stocking data. About each individual vine the stock of vine type plant in this region and photography. A robot can also recommending adapting treatments to the diversity in vegetation and soil even within a plot field. Many vintners surveyed in a straw poll by AFP considered vineyard robots to be an inevitable development. We once said we'd never use machines to harvest, now we do,' said Fetzmann. 'Everything that can be mechanised will eventually be mechanised. The Chateau Mouton Rothschild and its wine yard, classified 'premier cru classe' (first growth), in Pauillac near Bordeaux And what of concerns the robot could destroy jobs at a time when French unemployment stands at three million. Obviously this means we'll cut the jobs for vineyard pruners, but we're creating jobs for someone who has gone to school and who will build, maintain and improve the robots,' was Julian’s response we're going to keep the manufacturing in France.'


Wall-Ye is one of a handful of similar projects under development in the wine world. Both California and New Zealand are developing intelligent vision-based pruning robots. Richard Green of the University of Canterbury is developing a pruning robot backed by French drinks giant Pernod Ricardo. He predicts it will save the New Zealand wine industry 17.6 million Euros ($23 million) per year through increased productivity and reduced yield losses. But it's not just about labour costs; it's about the quality of the pruning. We often have novice pruners who have to be trained each year,' Green said. In California, Vision Robotics founder Bret Wallach said their robotic vine pruner, still in test phase, is three metres (10 feet) tall with eight cameras, and pairs a 3D model of the vines with customised pruning rules.

It's the same rules you would give a manual crew,' said Wallach. But manual crews are growing scarce in California. 'And it gets worse every year. Labour issues aside, some French growers are unwilling to see robotic pruners industrialise what has historically been a craft-based product. Technically it's interesting, but intellectually, it's inconceivable. It doesn't fit with my philosophy of making a grand worth of an easy fortune cru,' said Philippe Bardot, owner of Chateau du Val d'Or. I'm all for automating robots to carry out monitoring provisions and certain tasks, but not pruning.' Pruning is a particularly sensitive task. This is because it tells the vine how many bunches of grapes to produce and affects its ability to ripen the fruit to perfection. Also carry out planed cultivation makes for easier figures rather than whole crop been left to over ripen and dilemma of vast waste.

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