Increasing harvestable berry yield using precision agriculture technologies

The overall objective of the proposed initiative is to develop a novel, berry harvesting system that will identify the root causes of increased loses; increase berry picking efficiency and product quality. Currently, there are 15 to 25% fruit yield losses during the harvesting. The wild blueberry growers set a goal increase the harvestable yields by 33%. To achieve this, the technology based products and processes that are envision include (i) identification of sources responsible for increased losses (ii) improve harvestable berry recovery, (ii) replacement of old technology with innovative integrated harvesting system, (iv) find out a suitable combination of machine parameters (ground speed harvester head revolution) an d appropriate harvesting time with minimum losses using precision agriculture technologies and mathematical modeling procedures. Improving harvesting efficiency can reduce fruit losses and contribute millions of dollars to provincial as well as the federal economy every year.

Faculty Supervisor:

Qamar Zaman

Student:

Salamat Ali

Partner:

Slack Farms Limited

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University