Latest / Hydroponics Daily / Revolutionizing Tomato Harvesting: AI and Aeroponics in Action!

Transcript

Revolutionizing Tomato Harvesting: AI and Aeroponics in Action! · Hydroponics Daily

• 0:00
  Hi there, welcome back to Hydroponics Daily, your go-to podcast for everything soilless cultivation.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Dr. Russell Sharp, and today I'm talking about a greenhouse that
• 0:09
  has got me green with envy.
• 0:11
  It's the greenhouse by SAIA, S-A-I-A, agro-robotics.
• 0:19
  So SAIA agro-robotics have got this greenhouse and it looks amazing.
• 0:24
  And it's set in
• 0:27
  a lovely part of the Dutch countryside and it's a
• 0:30
  large state-of-the-art r&d greenhouse
• 0:33
  that i would just love to own and what
• 0:37
  but what makes it amazing is that the
• 0:40
  plants it's growing tomato crop and it's
• 0:44
  a aeroponic system so there's no growing media
• 0:48
  there's no the plants aren't even in a holder
• 0:51
  they are in sort of
• 0:53
  like a like an enclosed valley so
• 0:57
  they're where the where the root system is and then they're sprayed
• 1:00
  with fertigation solution in almost like
• 1:03
  in a little tent the the root system and
• 1:07
  the plants are held tomato vines are
• 1:09
  held on a on twine that goes
• 1:12
  up into the ceiling but the really interesting part is that
• 1:15
  that twine is then on a conveyor belt.
• 1:18
  And when it's time to harvest rather
• 1:23
  than getting a picker to go in there and pick the cherry tomatoes
• 1:26
  or whatever they're growing they move the
• 1:29
  plants to a dedicated ai controlled
• 1:33
  robotic picker so there's a
• 1:36
  video on the saia.tech website
• 1:41
  so saia.tech website
• 1:44
  and it's got these tomatoes moving through and the tomatoes
• 1:47
  are imaged so that
• 1:50
  the computer knows where all the ripe tomatoes
• 1:53
  are then it goes into a machine that sort of
• 1:56
  cuts grasps the tomato vine
• 2:00
  and then cuts them and then the
• 2:03
  tomatoes go off for harvesting so i've seen automated greenhouses
• 2:07
  before the deep worticulture ones in america where
• 2:10
  there's hardly any no one goes into the
• 2:13
  growing environment that's lettuce production that was for
• 2:15
  leafy greens this is for tomatoes and the
• 2:19
  whole what's so impressive is the whole tomato plant is moving through the system
• 2:23
  and it's apart from that it looks like a fairly conventional tomato greenhouse
• 2:28
  so it's not completely autonomous it's not completely autonomous but they reckon
• 2:33
  they're reducing labor inputs by i think it's 50 percent so.
• 2:38
  In a tomato greenhouse labor is pretty
• 2:41
  is very important and is one of the biggest costs along with heating and you
• 2:47
  know co2 and things like this so it looks like they might have even have a biogas
• 2:52
  generator on the on the site as well they've got a big dome as well even make
• 2:56
  it look even more scientific there's a vimeo.
• 3:00
  Video of it as well so the the prunus
• 3:04
  group provided the the prunus group yeah the
• 3:06
  irrigation system and then say say agro robotics
• 3:10
  they do the robots that harvest the tomatoes so must
• 3:14
  be a lot of venture capital and investment
• 3:17
  in this because for a company to
• 3:20
  invest so much in an r&d facility is pretty impressive
• 3:23
  hopefully we see this in in commercial
• 3:27
  productions elsewhere maybe it's already in commercial productions i'm just
• 3:30
  unaware of it but yeah fantastic aeroponic system
• 3:33
  definitely worth checking out see these tomato plants
• 3:36
  whizzing around the greenhouse they
• 3:40
  do seem to have some sort of hessian sack on them once they're moving but
• 3:43
  not a hessian sack on them when they are in the aeroponic system so not sure
• 3:48
  what what that is there if the guys from say agro robotics want to invite me
• 3:53
  over to the netherlands i'm more than happy to go to Ede in the Netherlands
• 3:59
  to have a look at this system.
• 4:01
  They've also got some LED grow lights there, but it's mainly sunlit and it's
• 4:06
  a fairly funky greenhouse.
• 4:08
  Yeah, very, very jealous of this greenhouse. So yeah, it looks very clean and
• 4:12
  nice and tidy, unlike my greenhouse, which is a small wooden greenhouse,
• 4:16
  which is currently full of tomatoes that are probably a bit past their best.
• 4:19
  Okay that's been hydroponics daily for today if you're interested go obviously go to.
• 4:25
  Saia.tech and check out those those images and yeah if you know of any other
• 4:30
  hydroponic systems where the plants are moved around and harvested by robots
• 4:35
  let me know but this is a new one to me and really interesting thank you very
• 4:39
  much for listening until tomorrow goodbye.