EdenCore Technologies, a Greek company founded in 2021, is offering tree and bush fruit growers a tractor-mounted camera called Viewer that scans the orchard as the tractor drives through, Future Farming reports.
The system puts two RGB cameras in one housing, mounted at the front of the tractor, on its hood or roof, or on a sprayer. They face sideways and scan both sides at once, with five flashing LED lights on each side for active lighting. According to the maker, the cameras capture trees up to 4 and even 5 metres tall and, through its algorithms, produce stereo depth images.
From these images the system counts buds, flowers and fruit of apples, avocados, blueberries, cherries, wine and table grapes, mangoes, nectarines, pears and peaches. The company says the counts can predict yield two to three months before harvest. It also records canopy volume, crop health and vigour, and flags dead trees.
Because the camera is Isobus-compatible, it can be linked to a sprayer to switch nozzles off where trees are missing, for example at headlands, and to vary the dose in real time if the air-blast or vertical-boom sprayer can apply variable rates.
EdenCore says more than 6,000 hectares have been scanned so far in Europe, North and South America and Oceania, and 80 cameras are in use in 15 countries. In Europe the Viewer currently sells for about €15,000 to €20,000, depending on region, configuration and dealer, or can be rented for €6,000 to €10,000 a year.
Photo: inkknife_2000 (rows of an apple orchard) / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Future Farming
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