January 26, 2023 Chat Transcript
Recording(s) here https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLajA3BBVyv1zc9xkiCSPqj3rEjW2vJ4Yb
Today’s Guests: Oli Hilbourne (Outfield); Jenny Lemieux (Vivid Machines); Karina Lau (AgerPix); Steve Mantle (Innov8); Mauricio Guerra Funes (Cornell University)
00:45:26 GK: Any use of drones for pest scouting?
00:45:53 BA: How big does fruiot have to be to detect in mm
00:46:35 BA: How small can you define a zone to 2′?
00:46:35 MJM: Is the drone useful for all training systems?
00:46:58 JC: Can the drones fly approx. 2m off the ground between rows to take sideview photos of the tree (for flower and fruitlet counts)
00:47:25 LS: How does your drone technology handle adverse weather conditions such as high winds and heavy rain?
00:49:12 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Hi Bruce. The fruit needs to be 40mm or about 1 inch in diameter to be picked up with the Outfield system. We can count from from 40mm right up to harvest.
00:50:46 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Hi Md Jebu. The drone works on trellis wall and super spindle growing systems. This year we will be demonstrating the system on V trellis and V4 systems.
00:53:11 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Hi John. We typically fly around 10-12m above the ground to survey the crops. We are always looking at higher resolution cameras, as as those become more common hopefully we will be able to pick up fruit earlier and earlier, right up to fruitlet counting. At the moment its only blossom cluster mapping and fruit counting from 40mm diameter and larger.
00:55:05 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Hi Lina. The drone works well in all lighting conditions, and being based in the UK we have plenty of examples of rainy conditions to train on! The drones don’t fly in the rain, and you shouldn’t fly in winds of 20 mph or more.
00:55:34 LS: Reacted to “Hi Lina. The drone w…” with 👍
00:56:49 JC: Jenny – what is the smallest fruit size your camera can measure?
00:57:17 RM: Do you have grower in Quebec
00:58:51 MJM: Hi Jenny, how about the price of the camera?
00:59:13 RF: Jenny- Have you started work on canopy density
01:03:39 Jenny Lemieux | Vivid Machines: Hi MJM – we lease the sensor for $5k/yr, and charge $60/acre for the predictions and services.
01:04:44 Jenny Lemieux | Vivid Machines: Hi Rod – we haven’t built a model yet for canopy density, mostly because we need to determine how to define it (per block, or variety, per farm.. ). but we have the data needed and it’s on the list! We just need help with thinking through what to present.
01:08:15 SB: How many dendrometers have been deployed in one orchard to get accurate growth curves? Or is there a recommendation of number of units per acre?
01:09:54 SB: Replying to “How many dendrometer…” answer: 6 units/hectare
01:11:10 LCF: Replying to “How many dendrometer…” Always depends on the species, the age, etc. One antenna covers around 50 Has.
01:24:43 RM: hi Jenny I assume that we must drive each sides of the row to have accurate data. What is the max speed of the 4 Wheel to obtain good results
01:26:04 IL: Hi Robert, yes driving both sides of the row is key to obtain a holistic view of your block. The Green Atlas cartographer can be driven at speeds of 25mph
01:26:29 AAK: Hi
01:28:30 Jenny Lemieux | Vivid Machines: hi Jenny I assume that we must drive each sides of the row to have accurate data. What is the max speed of the 4 Wheel to obtain good results Hi RM – no, just one side. One of the algorithms in our pipeline deals with occlusion so that we can predict from the one side.
Max speed is 10 km/hr, though on 3 and 4 leaf trees, a little slower, 5-7km is currently working better (though I expect we’ll solve that before April)
01:35:38 HGT: Does any of the speakers do the imaging/dat collection by aerial application?
01:38:20 Steve Mantle: HGT – partnerships roadmapped for innov8 – satellite (planet), flyover, drone (perhaps with some of the PACMAN presenters). Our belief is none of these systems are a one size fits all; and each of these methodologies (including handheld data capture) have a place to complement depending on extent of variability and need to scale.
01:39:03 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Hi HGT. Outfield uses drones to gather imagery data, we use that to create blossom loading maps, fruit counts and yield estimates. We use off the shelf consumer drones that growers can fly on demand. I was the first speaker on today’s call, I think there will be a video available later but I’m happy to follow up directly if you like.
01:40:42 HGT: my apology: clarification I am thinking fixed wing aircraft, helicopter or satellite. , not drones.
01:41:12 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Ah, no problem!
01:43:08 SB: Accuracy
01:43:22 AKL: On point
01:43:35 RK: total cost of ownership needs to be added
01:43:41 JMR: Results delivered in a timely manner
01:43:57 SB: Durability (could be considered ease of use)
01:44:00 SB: I think how the various technologies integrate with the others (new or existing ones) is important
01:44:26 JL: Net profit results
01:44:40 KB: what info we can gather – precision thinning vs final yields
01:45:47 SB: everybody is working on adding new tools, but each living in its own space, with no common/shared way of communicating with other tools or existing dataset
01:46:49 SB: yes
01:46:56 Steve Mantle: SB – PRECISELY. That’s our focus – bringing together data siloes (selectively, without it being too crazy!)
01:47:24 HGT: cost benefit analysis
01:47:45 SB: Units of cost is also important like is it per user, per acre, per year, etc.
01:47:46 Karen Lewis: Reacted to “everybody is working…” with 👍🏻
01:48:31 Steve Mantle: API availability for data flow is critical.
01:48:32 SB: Steve, I have a feeling no one company can solve this issue, but there should be an effort among tech companies to define a common ground, some standards
01:48:32 HGT: again: cost benefit analysis
01:48:55 HGT: it is all about DATA and their benefit
01:49:15 JL: Different for each
01:49:15 SB: mmmmm….maybe 100-500
01:49:17 Steve Mantle: SB – 100% agree. Getting us all oaring the right direction and aligning on common items like task maps are key.
01:50:20 RK: based on only 1 factor, is not too helpful for me.I want to see the overall picture. Chemical savings, environmental benefits…..
01:50:39 HGT: yes
01:50:44 SB: yes
01:50:54 JL: Yes
01:50:56 MJM: yes
01:50:59 AAK Dyes
01:51:06 ADR: turn on and receive data
01:51:14 DVW: Yes
01:51:26 JMR: Reacted to “turn on and receive …” with 👍
01:51:28 RK: Turn on and receive data if I can massage raw data for my use.
01:52:56 JL: Thanks for these sessions. Very enlightening!
01:53:49 Steve Mantle: Hats off to the organizing team for this series, and the tons of work you’re doing behind the scenes.
01:53:53 Craig Kahlke: Past PACMAN Meetups (Jan 12., 19, and today’s in the coming days):
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLajA3BBVyv1zc9xkiCSPqj3rEjW2vJ4Yb
01:54:17 Oli Hilbourne | Outfield: Thank you very much to the organising team for putting this all together, and thank you for the invite to speak today!
01:54:37 Craig Kahlke: W NY Fruit Conference – “State of the Industry” Feb 27-8 Rochester, NY
https://lof.cce.cornell.edu/event.php?id=1729
01:55:04 AKL: thank you PACMAN Extension team
01:55:15 Anna Wallis: Link to the PACMAN website for additional project updates: https://pacman.extension.org/
01:55:19 Jenny Lemieux | Vivid Machines: Thanks everyone!
01:55:26 Karen Lewis: https://www.innov8.ag/smartorchard
01:55:27 GS: thx!!
01:55:29 SB: will you have web connection for the conference?
01:55:39 ADR: thanks!
01:55:45 Steve Mantle: Yes – would love to engage more providers in smart orchard 🙂
01:55:58 RK: thank you all
01:56:03 MG: Thank you !
01:56:49 SB: is there a newsletter for the PACMAN project?
01:56:56 Steve Mantle: Where do we subscribe to the quarterly?
01:57:13 Karen Lewis: Replying to “is there a newslette…” Pacman website – no newsletter
01:57:33 Jon Clements: No newsletter, website pacman.extension.org has blog/post updates
01:57:51 Anna Wallis: https://nyshs.org/fruit-quarterly/
01:57:51 SB: Reacted to “No newsletter, websi…” with 👍🏻
01:58:03 Steve Mantle: Reacted to “https://nyshs.org/fr…” with 😁
01:58:15 SB: thanks!
01:59:26 Steve Mantle: Turning around the links of recordings in 24 hours is awesome; thank you!
01:59:49 AAK Thankfully