3D vision helps apple producers take control of crop load management
ADDIUM, a leading provider of innovative solutions for agriculture, introduced POMETA, its new intelligent crop load management system.
At a time when margins are thin, apple producers need to take control of crop load management, optimise chemical thinning, get the most value out of every labourer and consistently hit crop load targets. Getting crop load right means packing out more bins per acre, hitting size targets, packing more high-quality fruit, and realising good return bloom.
“Fruit producers are squeezed on both sides,” said Dave Brown POMETA Director, “Consumers and grocery stores demand high-quality fruit, but the labour needed to produce the best fruit only gets more expensive. It is getting hard to make money growing apples.”
With POMETA technology, growers can quickly count clusters, fruits, and fruit per tree, and estimate singles, doubles, and triples. From 5 mm diameter, growers can determine individual size and growth rates for thousands of fruit in a matter of minutes. And using fruitlet counts and growth rates, POMETA helps growers dial in chemical fruitlet thinning by automatically forecasting fruitlet drop. And all this is possible without requiring routine calibration manual counts.
According to Patrick Plonski, POMETA Computer Vision Director, “We use iPhone video to construct a 3D model of an orchard canopy, locate and size the fruit, and estimate hidden (occluded) fruit. We see every tree from 100 or more perspectives, which allows us to detect more fruit than any photo-based technology. And the 3D technology allows us to track the persistence of individual fruitless, and measure individual growth rates to the nearest mm.”
POMETA offers the most sophisticated computer vision technology, made simple and easy for growers to use. The POMETA data acquisition app (POMViz) is as easy to use as taking a phone video. The POMETA web app has simple navigation and clear data displays to provide growers with rapid insights.
