Recipient Organization
PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY
408 Old Main
UNIVERSITY PARK,PA 16802-1505
Performing Department
(N/A)
Non Technical Summary
To achieve a good crop yield and fruit quality, it is critical to demonstrate a well-planned crop load management approach throughout the season. During the blossom period, apple trees generally produce a large number of flowers, which later can be pollinated to set fruit. Each flower requires resource allocation from the tree to grow properly and turn into an apple fruit. However, when the number of flowers is too high, an abundance of small, low-quality apples can result in things that may be unworthy for sale. Therefore, it is very important to adjust the number of flowers to set fruits. Chemical blossom thinning has proven to be one of the most effective methods to improve apple quality, size, and color. However, using conventional orchard sprayers which apply a noticeable amount of chemicals without precision control results in huge chemical wastes and environmental impact. This project aims to develop a targeted chemical blossom thinning system for apple trees to achieve precision crop load management at the flower stage. The expected outcomes of this project will be an integrated spraying system that can conduct chemical blossom thinning with high precision and significant chemical usage reduction. In a long term, this system will have a significant positive impact on crop management and improving the economic and environmental sustainability of the U.S. tree fruit industry.
Animal Health Component
40%
Research Effort Categories
Basic
10%
Applied
40%
Developmental
50%
Goals / Objectives
The primary goal of the project is to develop a targeted chemical blossom thinning system for apple trees to achieve precision crop load management at the flower stage. Specifically, we propose the following three research objectives:Objective #1: Develop an advanced machine vision system for crop yield estimation and decision support for precision crop load management at the flower stage.Objective #2: Develop a precision sprayer system that can apply chemical thinner only targeting the flower clusters in tree canopies.Objective #3: Integration of precision chemical blossom thinning system with the machine vision system and targeted spraying system.
Project Methods
Objective #1: A machine vision system equipped with one or more 3D vision sensors (such as stereo vision cameras) will be developed to detect and create depth maps of flowers/flower clusters within tree canopies. Artificial intelligence based detection models will be developed followed by counting and localization for yield estimation and blossom thinning decision making support.Objective #2: A To ensure working efficiency, a sprayer with a set of vertically mounted nozzles will be developed and used to cover the entire canopy height. The locations and number of the nozzles will be determined to ensure there are no gaps. The nozzles can be individually controlled to spray chemical to the targeted flower clusters based on their locations. A lab test rig will be developed and tested, and then a field test with multiple nozzles will be conducted to test the nozzle control set.Objective #3: The machine vison system and precision spraying system will be integrated into a precision chemical blossom thinning system. Functional tests of the integrated system will be conducted in orchard conditions. The system evaluation with chemical blossom thinning will be conducted at project year 3, and will be compared with a conventional chemical thinning system. The chemical thinning performance will be analyzed for post bloom fruit set, leaf damage, and fruit yield and quality at harvest.