When the citrus industry began to pursue the idea of a robotic harvesting system several years ago, it had plenty of labor and was looking at robotics to serve as a back-up if there was a shortage of labor, Ted Batkin, president of the California Citrus Research Board, said during the Washington State Horticultural Association’s annual meeting in Wenatchee. But the harvester had to be economically viable, too. The Research Board calculated that the cost of picking fruit by hand was $18 per bin. In comparison, the cost of buying a robotic harvester from Vision Robotics Corporation in California and […]