—by Ross Courtney and Shannon Dininny
The Washington State Tree Fruit Association kicked off Day 2 of its annual meeting with a cherry session and a tour of an Allan Bros. orchard in Naches, Washington, followed by sessions about technology and pears.
The technology session highlighted growers’ needs for new tools that can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs.
Collaborators shared an update on the Smart Orchard project, which features research trials led by Washington State University and has three years of funding from the Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission. The project is hosted at a 30-acre orchard farmed by NWFM, an agricultural management company known for its early adoption of technology. Lav Khot, WSU associate professor of biological systems engineering and director of AgWeatherNet, is the principal investigator on several research projects this year, including bloom mapping, heat stress monitoring, irrigation automation trials and autonomous technologies, among others. Commercial collaborators are privately funded.
Khot and Keith Veselka, NWFM managing partner, provided a short update on some of the research underway, including crop load management, pollination, autonomy, precision spraying and electric weeding.
Veselka expressed intrigue at the work of BeeHero, which tracks and monitors bee activity in the orchard. Sensors track the bees’ entry and exit from the hives and their flights in the orchard. Data provides insight into how far the bees fly and the role inclement weather, including wind, plays in their productivity. Scales on the hives show the hive health, as measured by weight.
“When you have a healthy hive, the pollination opportunities are greatly improved,” Veselka said.
On the autonomous equipment front, NWFM has been working with BlueWhite for the past two seasons, and Veselka said they’ve had good success. “This ranch lends itself because it’s so flat and square, there aren’t a lot of challenges. We’ve had some issues with connectivity, but I think they’ve worked that out,” he said.
Labor efficiency and safety improvements are among the goals with automation. “We all need to reduce our labor costs with overtime and inflation,” he said. “And if we can get one operator working three or four of these tractors, we can save a lot of money and increase safety on the farm.”
In a talk about spray technology, WSU Extension’s Gwen Hoheisel said growers want to know the ideal spray system. Her answer: “The ideal sprayer is still one sprayer that is going to get every drop to the crop.”
Even with the new sensors and technologies on the market, the first and second steps to having optimal spray remain the same: fixing air direction and air volume. “If you fix your direction and your air volume, without any technology, you’re going to get your greatest return on investment,” she said.
When they’re ready for new technologies, growers need to examine the true needs for their orchards and canopies and compare those against the financial costs and the return on investment.
During a grower panel, the growers agreed that technology companies have often “overpromised and underdelivered” when it comes to meeting growers’ needs — and, too often, growers have ended up footing the cost of that research while the companies learned about the industry.
Growers have learned from that, said Veselka, the moderator.
To those technology companies, he said those days are over. “We are not going to pay for your product to teach you what farming is all about. If anything, you’re going to work with us, and maybe even pay us, to help you develop your products.”
And although times are hard right now, he said growers need the technology. “We want to work with you, but you need to ask the right questions, and you need to be willing open up and collaborate.”
The layers of technology can be daunting, so Veselka asked the panel what’s making a difference on farms today.
Matt Miles, process improvement manager for Allan Bros., said tracking labor costs has been a priority. That involves knowing the costs and how many hours workers are doing that task, compared with how long it took before. “When you divide those, it better be a smaller number, because then you’re being more efficient,” he said.
If you’re writing it down, put it in a spreadsheet, and if you’re in a spreadsheet, then you consider a labor-tracking platform, he said.
“That data around our labor is probably one of the most important things we’re looking at right now,” he said.
Paul Cathcart, area manager for Columbia Reach, said growers need to add in the qualitative metrics they are trying to achieve. “It’s not just hours. It’s how much are you actually accomplishing in the field, and how close are you getting to your targets?” he said.
Cathcart also stressed the importance of growers having standard operating procedures to document the actual process on the farm. “That in itself is going to help to evaluate any of these solutions and being able to navigate that process,” he said.
In the afternoon, pear growers gathered to hear from CarrieAnn Arias, the new president and CEO of Pear Bureau Northwest, who discussed how the industry could, and maybe should, begin talking to consumers about pears.
For one, she suggested growers start having more fun.
“’Pears’ is boring right now, we’re not having fun,” said Arias, who stepped into her position about six months ago, replacing Kevin Moffitt.
She shared a slide with suggested slogans such as: “I make this russet look good!” and “No, I’m not an apple!”
She also suggested the industry not talk down to consumers or preach to them. Shoppers already know fresh produce is healthy, and they can figure out how to let pears ripen at home — they do it with avocados just fine, she said.
She also discussed the use, sometimes serendipitously, of influencers. Recently, rap star Rick Ross discussed losing 100 pounds by making pears part of his diet.
“There’s even cartoon videos of this rapper walking around with pears,” she said. “It’s pretty adorable … with some cuss words, unfortunately, so it wasn’t something that we could probably really leverage and not alienate consumers.”
Other presentations focused on entomology, decay prevention and boosting fruit set.
The annual meeting will continue with an awards banquet Tuesday evening and conclude Wednesday with the final day of presentations and trade show. •
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