PROSSER, WA - Washington State University (WSU) is now partnering with Digital Harvest Corp. to test a drone with the goal to provide safer and less expensive cherry harvesting that prevent fruit losses. The drone would mainly be used to blow rainwater off of cherry orchards, which can potentially cause quality loss in cherries.
“Traditional helicopters can be cost prohibitive and problematic, and there is not any hard data on the effectiveness of helicopters and orchard sprayers for rainwater removal,” said Lav Khot, Assistant Professor of Biological Systems Engineering at WSU’s Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems (CPAAS) in Prosser. “We hope our research will show the efficacy of the RMAX and also analyze data to share with tree fruit growers.”
According to WSU, rain can cause splits in the skin of cherries and other similar fruits, making them more susceptible to premature decay and making them “unmarketable.” Currently, growers can use hovering helicopters to dry off cherry crops after a rainstorm, but this can be both costly and can be dangerous.
WSU will now spend the next few months testing the Yamaha RMAX UAV, an unmanned, 11-foot helicopter, as an alternative to these manned helicopters. If trials are successful, the device will be tested in the field specifically for removing water from tree canopies to prevent fruit cracking.
You can watch a two-minute flight demonstration video below.
Originally developed in Japan, where there are approximately 2,500 in operation, the RMAX has been used for spraying rice crops since 1997, WSU reports. In the future, Khot said he would love to see research into the effectiveness of the RMAX for targeted spray and chemical dispersal applications.
“In Japan, it is common for family farms to pool resources to utilize the RMAX to spray their fields,” he said. “We could foresee the same partnering with farms in the Pacific Northwest.”
The UAV weighs 141 pounds and has a load capacity of up to 61 pounds. The two corporations had to work with the Federal Aviation Administration to obtain exemptions to fly and test the device for research purposes.
