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Our goal is to work with the specialty crop industry to fulfill its vision of significantly reducing the cost of production of US fruit. Our objectives include developing, integrating, testing, deploying, and assessing a carefully chosen set of information, mobility, manipulation and plant science technologies, assessing their socio-economic utility, and transferring results to the end users via commercialization and outreach. The automation technologies proposed here include mobility, accurate positioning, information systems and decision-making, and augmented harvesting. The plant science techniques include plant stress detection, disease/insect infestation detection, insect population monitoring, caliper measurement, and crop load scouting. Each of these technologies and techniques will be assessed with respect to their social and economic feasibility. This activity will ensure that methods and tools validated in the laboratory and in the field are affordable to farms of various sizes and means, and that they create positive economic and social value for the grower and rural communities. Outreach and commercialization are integral parts of the proposed project and will start at the very outset.
NON-TECHNICAL SUMMARY: The specialty crops industry is facing a crisis of increasing labor costs and shortages of available labor; if the trends continue, farms are at risk of economic failure. Increasing labor efficiency is vital to the survival of this important industry. In addition to labor costs, an increasing consumer demand for a safe, affordable, traceable, and high quality food supply, and the need to minimize the environmental footprint represent keys challenges for specialty crop sustainability in the United States. In this project a cross-disciplinary team of engineers, plant scientists, economists, outreach professionals, and commercial partners proposes focused research, education, and extension efforts to impact crop assessment, environmental monitoring, production efficiency, food safety, and environmental sustainability. Our approach will lower cost and raise quality and address an urgent need to reduce labor for the specialty crop industry. Growers and leaders of rural communities have been integrally involved in developing a strategic plan to utilize state-of-the-art technologies to develop an ecosystem-based, economical, and socially sustainable producer-to-consumer comprehensive automation system for fruit and nursery crops. Action plans include developing, integrating, testing, and deploying a carefully chosen set of information, mobility, and manipulation and plant science technologies, and transferring results to end users via outreach and commercialization. Proposed information, mobility, and manipulation technologies include reconfigurable mobility, accurate positioning, data collection and management for mapping/decision-making, and assisted harvest. Proposed plant science techniques include plant stress detection, disease and insect infestation detection, insect population monitoring, caliper measurement, and crop load scouting. Economic comparisons of new technologies will be conducted in commercial plantings of various sizes and in-depth statistical comparisons will be conducted in 12 commercial pilot plantings established for the purpose of evaluating tree architectures for compatibility with automation. To ensure technology transfer, several partner companies will be involved from the very outset.<P>APPROACH: Our overall methodology consists of creating a cycle where real-world needs originate from stakeholders and growers and dictate the information, mobility, and manipulation and plant science technologies and techniques to be developed and integrated. These are tested in the laboratory and in the field, where their effectiveness can be systematically assessed. They are then validated with socio-economic analyses that show which technologies and techniques are adequate to which classes of growers, based on a variety of factors such as net present value, workforce displacement, etc. Finally, the results of the project reach the stakeholders and growers in the form of outreach and commercialization activities, thus closing a cycle. We will address the needs of the tree fruit and nursery industries via a program based on the following five key concepts: Comprehensiveness: We propose a balanced, comprehensive set of automation and plant science technologies and techniques jointly defined with key stakeholders. Innovation: We will focus on research topics that are aligned with the interests and needs of stakeholders to increase our chances of delivering innovations that generate true value for the industry. High pay-off: We propose to leverage the state-of-the-art in information, mobility, and manipulation and plant science to deliver technologies that provide high pay-off to the sponsors of the project. Outreach and commercialization: We emphasize the importance of Outreach by involving three extension activities at PSU, WSU and OSU. All technologies developed under this project will be tested and validated by our industrial partners and growers in real-world conditions. Engagement of stakeholders: We will engage various stakeholders - producers, rural and commodity associations, commercial machine developers, and academia - to continuously assess results, refine the objectives, and appropriately direct the resources of the project.