Washington growers explore robotic apple harvesting at industry meetings

At the Washington State Tree Fruit Association‘s annual meeting in Kennewick, growers saw firsthand how robotic apple harvesting is moving from concept to reality. Several robotics companies displayed their technologies and one company in particular — Abundant Robotics of Hayward, California — showed that the future of harvesting may already be here.

Bringing robots into the orchard

Abundant Robotics CEO Dan Steere explained that robotic harvesters excel at identifying ripe fruit and picking it reliably under the right conditions.

“A robotic harvester is going to start in the row and need to reach directly to grab a piece of fruit, and so it’s important for growers to look for ways to migrate pruning and thinning practices in the orchard to be able to simply have direct access to fruit in the canopy,” Steere said.

The company’s vacuum apple harvester has proven it can detect apples, pick them without significant damage, and maintain a picking rate of more than one apple per second. Steere acknowledged that while the machines are sophisticated, they lack the flexibility of a human arm. Branches, wires, or tightly packed apple bunches can limit access or cause damage during harvest.

Adapting orchards for automation

Growers who adapt their canopies with pruning and thinning improve how well robots can access fruit. Depending on the orchard’s readiness, the percentage of apples picked by robotic systems can vary by as much as 20 percent.

Steere emphasized that success often depends less on canopy style and more on how growers carry out grouping and thinning practices. Both angled and vertical trellis systems were tested, and results varied in each.

Field results in Washington

Abundant Robotics worked with a cross-section of Washington growers to test prototypes. Scott Jacky of Valley Fruit Orchards near Royal City described results from his Pacific Gala canopy, trained with 13′ x 2′ spacing. In the robotic test area, the harvested 82 bins to the acre compared to 105 bins per acre in an untested block. Jacky said the test area reached 67% robot accessibility.

“I think we got a little overzealous with the thinning,” he said. “This year thinning didn’t do much for size. I think we could have left more fruit on there.”

Despite yield differences, Jacky and other growers showed that orchards can adapt enough to allow successful robotic apple harvesting.

From trial to commercial use

Researchers at Abundant Robotics, a spinoff of SRI International, have developed automated harvesters for more than three years. They have tested machines in both Washington state orchards and in the Southern Hemisphere. With promising trial results, engineers now aim to create a commercial system that works in high-density orchards. Steere said the goal is to deploy the first commercial machines as early as 2018.

As robotic technology advances, growers continue to weigh the trade-offs between efficiency, orchard adaptation, and yield outcomes. For many in Washington, the promise of robotic apple harvesting signals a significant step toward the future of orchard management.

– Scott Stuntz, FGN Contributing Writer