Scanner helps growers find sweet spot for cherry harvest
Researchers come up with better way to determine best time to pick fruit
New hand-held scanners could help cherry growers determine the optimum time to pick the ripening fruit.
The devices can measure a cherry’s sugar levels and even predict how well it will survive shipment to distant markets.
“We’re leading the field in this kind of research,” Peter Toivonen, a scientist at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research station in Summerland, said Wednesday. “Already, we’re seeing a lot of interest in this technology.”
Currently, farmers rely on a mix of intuition, experience and timeconsuming laboratory testing that requires the destruction of fruit samples to determine the sugar levels in cherries.
They can also reference picking guides that are based on colour charts for cherry varieties, but these may not perfectly match real-time conditions in orchards.
Toivonen and fellow researchers Brenda Lannard and Changwen Lu have adapted commercial hand-held optical spectrometers to precisely gauge the fruit’s sugar levels and yield other information, such as its calcium content, firmness and phenolics.
Reliably measuring the cherries’ maturity, quality and firmness will mean the fruit can be picked at the best possible moment so it holds together during transport to foreign markets.
Reducing fruit losses in shipment could boost growers’ returns by as much as 20 per cent, Toivonen estimates.
Spectrometry, which involves the use of light to determine the structure and composition of materials, is widely used in geology. The hand-held optical spectrometers now being adapted for agricultural use yield immediate data that’s easily viewed on a device such as a smartphone.
The B.C. cherry industry, most of which is located in the Okanagan, has an annual value of about $150 million. Cherry varieties mature at different times through the growing season, making it critically important that growers know precisely when to harvest the fruit for maximum profit.