Imagine if your spray equipment could tell where the pests were in your orchard so you could treat only the infested parts of the trees, rather than the whole orchard. Ted Batkin, president of the California Citrus Research Board, told Washington tree fruit growers that this could soon become a reality, and if it does, it has the potential to reduce the use of spray material in orchards by 90 percent. The Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission and the Citrus Research Board are jointly funding an effort by scientists in California to develop a robotic harvesting system. The two-part system […]