The Crush - October 2020 - 2

[ FEATURE STORY ]
Winery in commercial vineyards, and he is seeking to partner
with other vineyard operations to place sensing kits in the field
for vine monitoring and data collection.
"Our goal is to use models against existing ground truth data,
such as yield data," Earles said. "Growers we are working with
have a lot of ground truth data on yields, and we can use that
data to train these models. The more ground truth data, the better
the model."
Earles is also an investigator at the recently established UCD
AI Institute for Next Generation Food Systems, part of a
collaboration of seven institutions across the U.S. funded by the
National Science Foundation, in partnership with other federal
agencies. The institute seeks to increase efficiencies across the
entire food system and will include agriculture-specific AI
applications, sensing platforms and robotics.
Earles said, "We're looking at opportunities to use AI to
accelerate precision viticulture, and develop technology that
will give more actionable data and analysis, rather than just
raw data." This includes developing hardware and software
systems in the lab, and a goal is to develop lower-cost sensing
systems. Possible future uses for AI sensing technology include
monitoring and predicting grape quality and ripeness, predicting
grape disease and monitoring drought stress.
THORVALD ROBOT FOR POWDERY MILDEW CONTROL
The Thorvald robot, a promising robotic platform from Saga
Robotics in Norway, has been tested at Cornell University's
AgriTech research vineyards in Geneva and at Anthony Road
Winery in Penn Yan, N.Y. Dr. David Gadoury, senior research
associate in the Department of Plant Pathology and PlantMicrobe Biology at Cornell AgriTech, is leading the project using
an ultraviolet (UV) light array mounted on a Thorvald robot for
grapevine powdery mildew control in chardonnay vineyards.
UV light damages DNA in living organisms. The researchers are
using lamps that deliver a low dose of UV light that can kill the
powdery mildew pathogens without damaging the grapevine.
Research shows that mildew control is significantly more
effective when UV light is used at night. Many organisms have
defenses against UV light damage through a repair mechanism
triggered by blue light available in sunlight. At night, mildew
pathogens do not receive blue light and this repair mechanism
is not activated. Viticulture researchers at Washington State
University in Prosser are also developing and testing UV light
arrays pulled by tractors for powdery mildew control.
The Cornell researchers performed previous trials with the UV
light array mounted on a trailer attached to a tractor, but this
requires an operator to work all night to drive the tractor. With
the light array on the Thorvald robot, the autonomous vehicle
can operate at night, seven days a week without human labor.
2 / OCTOBER 2020

Thorvald robot with a powdery
mildew-fighting UV light array.

Gadoury explained operating parameters: "Speed is dependent
on the dose required and the power of the array carried by the
robot. In the configuration we use, the robot operates at 2.9
kilometers (km) per hour to deliver a dose of 100 Joule per square
meter. So, a single robot could cover 14.5 km of vineyard row in a
five-hour night period. A four-hour dark period must follow the
UV application. This is about the length of time we have during
the summer solstice." Available night hours for operation vary
based on a vineyard's latitude and the date during the growing
season. "We have had the best results for mildew control with
weekly or twice-weekly treatments," Gadoury said. "We are
testing in commercial vineyards now in New York and will be
testing at other commercial sites in the western U.S. in 2021."
Thorvald is designed as a flexible, modular platform on four
wheels that is expandable for different agricultural functions and
environments. The battery-operated unit can operate with fourwheel drive and four-wheel steering. Speed is dependent on use
with a maximum of 1.5 meters per second. To date, Thorvald has
been used more extensively in strawberry production operations,
in open fields and greenhouses, but it is also used in other fruit
and forage production operations for light treatment, harvesting,
in-field transportation, spraying, weed control, and data
collection and crop prediction. The flexible platform allows it to
perform multiple operations, and it can be equipped with sensors
and visual systems for monitoring.
Dr. Pal Johan From is the CEO and founder of Saga Robotics and
a professor at the Norwegian University of Life Science. To date,
Thorvald has been used largely for research and experimental
applications, but From said, "We expect to have commercial
robots doing UV treatment next season, but they will be limited
to very specific geographical areas in Europe and the U.S."

The Crush - October 2020

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