1. USDA-ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station Kearneysville, WV 25430
2015 Spring Meeting Florida Blueberry Growers’ Association CURRENT USDA BLUEBERRY RESEARCH: * SEASONAL SHADING OF BLUEBERRY PLANTS * MECHANICAL AND HARVEST-AID SYSTEMS FOR FRESH- MARKET PACK-OUT BLUEBRRY * BLUEBERRY PACKING LINE EVALUATION
Fumiomi Takeda
USDA-ARS Appalachian Fruit Research Station
Kearneysville, WV 25430
U.S. Highbush Blueberry Council

2. Seasonal, Retractable Shading System for Blueberries
in the Southeast
Cooler plant temperature/Substitute for HC?
Advance bloom, Improve fruit set
Reduce frost damage, Bird predation?
Increase U-Pick customer satisfaction
Bartow, FL
Feb. 2013

3. Scale-Neutral Harvest-Aid System and Sensor Technologies to Improve Harvest Efficiency and Handling of Fresh-Market Highbush Blueberries Project Overview
USDA NIFA competitive grant: Specialty Crop Research Initiative ($2.37 million)
14 PIs from 10 LAND-GRANT UNIVERSITIES and USDA-ARS
Multi-state, comprehensive 4-year research/ extension project to develop semi- mechanical harvesters and sensor technologies to take fresh market blueberry production to next level

4. Objectives Develop high-throughput phenotyping, sensor technologies
Design a new semi-mechanical harvest-aid system for efficient mechanical fruit harvesting for small- and medium-size blueberry farms and with fruit quality for fresh-market pack- out
Develop the next-generation berry impact recording sensor and use it to improve harvest and postharvest operations through a critical understanding of mechanical impacts

5. Objectives Determine microbial contamination and critical
control points along the harvest and
postharvest chain with the new harvesting system
Conduct economic and ergonomic analyses of new developed harvesting technologies
6. Outreach and technology transfer

6. HAND-HARVESTED
MACHINE-HARVESTED

7. Hand-harvested blueberries

8. Fruit dropped from heights > 2 feet

9. Internal bruise detection using near infrared imaging system
Band ratio near infrared images (1075/1250 nm) of bruised blueberries (top row) and healthy blueberries (bottom row);
Bruised
A SWRI hyperspectral imaging system will be used
PCA and minimum noise fraction transform will be used to enhance features
Band ratio images will be used to enhance bruising feature
Linear Bayesian classifier for classification

10. Thermal imaging Bruised Pulsed-phase thermography
Thermal image of one bruised (right) and one healthy (left) blueberries (Li, Unpublished work).
Pulsed-phase thermography
Thermal camera (T440, FLIR) 320 x 240
10 s heat excitation
Frequency, amplitude, and phase delay will be analyzed by fast Fourier transform using Matlab
Artificial bruising (pendulum); 24h and 48h after bruising

11. PACKING HOUSE EVALUATION

12. BIRD Sensor: Assembly 3 Accelerometers Y
YOur goal is to design one inch sphere that are similar to a blueberry (at least small enough to go through a mechanical harvester). It is a very challenging goal to fit all those eletronic components into a one inch sphere. This diagram shows how we did that. on the top is the smallerst battery we can find; and then, two PCB boards we designed: first one holds x and y accelerometers and most electronic components, the second one holds the third accelerometer to sense the impacts from the orthogonal z axis. Finally we cast the whole PCB boards including battery using silicone rubber and made the 1 inch sphere. This picture shows the real size of the BIRD sensor is comparable to a blueberry—well, I have to admit that this is a large blueberry.

13. BIRD II
BIRD II

14. CUMULATIVE DROP HEIGHT = ~ 40 in.

15. *
ELECTRONIC
SORTER *
SIZER *
Grading Line * *

16. Fruit dropped once from 24-inch height onto padded surface

17. Fruit dropped 5 times from 6-inch height to hard surface

18. Objective 2
Design a new semi-mechanical harvest-aid system for efficient mechanical fruit harvesting for small- and medium-size blueberry farms.
Goal: Machine harvest blueberries without bruising them!

19. Alternative Harvester Design: Reduce how far berries drop
1. Plant canopy manipulation; 2) Positioning of catcher plates

20. Catcher plate design ? Padded catcher plate
Various padding products are being evaluated
Padded catcher plate ?

21. Putting all the components together:

22. Multi-Row Harvesting Platform?
Improved fruit removal apparatus
Catcher plates that minimize fruit bruising
Ergonomic
Higher capacity platform harvesting system

23. Thank you!
Questions?