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CapitalPress.com
December 9, 2016
Developer wants robotic apple picker by 2018
A robot able to pick ap-
ples fast enough and gently
enough to be economically
WENATCHEE, Wash. — viable could be a huge boost
The developer of a robotic to the apple industry in labor
apple picker says his goal is to savings and in overcoming la-
have it ready for commercial bor shortages.
use in orchards in the fall of
Steere and his Abundant
2018.
Robotics co-founders, Curt
“It will work at a produc- Salisbury and Michael Erik-
tivity rate that will be lower sen, are robotic software and
cost than human picking,” Dan hardware engineers, develop-
Steere, CEO of Abundant Ro- ing a robotic harvester with
botics of Hayward, Ca-
a $550,000 grant from
lif., told attendees at the
the Washington Tree
Washington State Tree
Fruit Research Com-
Fruit Association annu-
mission in Wenatchee
al meeting on Dec. 6.
and funding from SRI
That was his re-
International in Menlo
sponse when asked
Park, Calif.
how many bins of ap- Dan Steere
Abundant Robot-
ples per day the picker
ics is working with its
can pick. Steere said he didn’t third prototype in 18 months
want to reveal that yet, nor an with improvements to be
estimated price per unit. How- made after fall harvest test-
ever, he said it will be practi- ing in Washington and spring
cal and affordable within the harvest testing in the Southern
next 10 years.
Hemisphere, Steere said.
By DAN WHEAT
Capital Press
Courtesy of Abundant Robotics
Prototype robotic apple picker and fruiting wall. Cameras and sensors guide it to vacuum fruit into bins.
Here’s how it works: A ro-
botic arm and vacuum tube,
guided by a computer aided
by cameras and sensors, de-
tects apples and sucks them
off trees at one apple per sec-
ond and delivers them into
bins. Steere showed a video
that he said was real-time.
He said the picker detects
95 percent of apples and isn’t
bothered by leaves or new
growth but is obstructed by
wood such as limbs.
Leaves were stripped from
part of a tree in one test, leav-
ing 21 apples. Six of the 21
were not detected because of
limbs, he said.
The system isn’t built to
work on large old trees, but
new high-density spindle or
Analyst: Export market key to
growth of Oregon microbreweries
By ERIC MORTENSON
Capital Press
H ANNU
T
8
Eric Mortenson/Capital Press
Sam Guss rakes spent hops from a tank at Gigantic Brewing Co. in southeast Portland. A state analyst
says the international export market holds great potential for Oregon’s mid-size and large breweries.
Slightly bigger producers,
however, are in fi erce compe-
tition for a limited number of
in-state tap handles and shelf
space.
“Flagship” Oregon beers
such as Deschutes’ Black
Butte Porter, Widmer’s Hefe-
weisen and Ninkasi’s Total
Domination can be found in
bars and restaurants all over
the state, Lehner said. The
state’s fi ve largest breweries
now sell only 20 percent of
their beer in Oregon, he said.
For medium-size to large
Oregon breweries, sales out-
side the state are a must, Leh-
ner said. That’s complicated
by the fact that the Pacifi c
Northwest no longer has the
market cornered on tasty,
locally sourced and locally
made microbrews. Good lo-
cal beer can now be found
all over the country, and con-
sumers often prefer to support
local businesses rather than
out-of-state breweries.
International exports are
a relatively untapped market,
Lehner said.
“The path forward is re-
ally about reversing the Or-
L
A
4
PORTLAND – Van Havig,
co-owner of Gigantic Brew-
ing Co. on the city’s hip-
ster-heavy east side, has an
app on his phone that provides
instantly updated currency
exchange rates. The compa-
ny, formed by Havig and Ben
Love fi ve years ago, sells 5 to
7 percent of its beer outside
the country, primarily to Can-
ada but a bit to Japan, New
Zealand and the United King-
dom. The strong U.S. dollar
makes Gigantic something of
an expensive choice overseas.
Nonetheless, Gigantic is
exactly the size of craft brew-
ery — producing 4,000 to
5,000 barrels a year — that
a state economic analyst says
ought to be pushing hard on
the export market to assure
continued growth.
In remarks at the Ore-
gon Brewers Guild’s annual
meeting in Portland Nov. 30,
analyst Josh Lehner said Or-
egon’s craft beer industry is
slowing down after a decade
in which the number of Ore-
gon breweries grew from 76
in 2006 to 218 in 2016.
The beer market outlook
has implications up and down
the economic chain, from
hops and barley farmers and
malt producers to stainless
steel fermentation tank manu-
facturers, tourism and dining.
Prospects remain good for
neighborhood microbrewer-
ies, said Lehner, who works
for the Oregon Offi ce of Eco-
nomic Analysis.
“For these smaller brew-
eries, I think the outlook is
bright,” Lehner told brewery
guild members. “The brew-
pub model works.”
He said demand is strong
and there are still many parts
of the state and country that
are “under supplied” when it
comes to neighborhood brew-
pubs. Maybe not on Port-
land’s east side, he added, but
certainly in the suburbs.
egon Trail,” he said. “There
is just too much competition
and market saturation to be
able to reach large production
numbers by relying solely on
Oregon consumers.”
Lehner said Pacifi c Rim
nations are a good target mar-
ket for Oregon beer, as they
are for many other crops and
food products.
About half of Oregon beer
exports now go to Canada, 17
percent to Japan and about
5 percent each to China and
South Korea, Lehner said. He
acknowledged the strong U.S.
dollar hurts sales: A $10 six-
pack here costs $13 overseas.
But Lehner said currency ex-
change rates often fl uctuate,
and a devalued dollar may
serve as a market “tailwind”
of Oregon beer.
Love, the Gigantic Brew-
ing co-owner, agreed that tar-
geting exports is a potentially
good business model. Canada
used to buy more when the ex-
change rate made Gigantic’s
beer less expensive, he said.
In other remarks to the
brewers’ guild, Lehner said
job gains in the state’s alcohol
cluster — beer, wine, hard ci-
der and spirits — have outper-
formed the software sector,
although the latter gets more
media attention.
He said the Oregon brew-
ing industry is important be-
cause it is value-added pro-
cessing with good growth
potential, money invested in
it returns to the state, and it is
geographically more spread
out than other industries.
Lehner said the Oregon
Legislature increased the state
lodging tax, and there will be
$10 million more available
annually for tourism and re-
lated activities. He said brew-
ers should tap some of that to
market their business.
He said “chatter” about the
decline of national chain casu-
al-dining restaurants doesn’t
apply to brewpubs.
“I think it just means peo-
ple don’t want to overpay for
mediocre chain food,” he said.
“I can get much better food at
a lower price point from my
neighborhood brewery.
“And of course you can’t
even compare the tap lists,”
he added.
V-trellis plantings where the
plane of the fruiting wall is 2
to 3 feet in depth.
“We think we’re good at
hardware and software. That’s
what we know. We’re not ex-
perts on (tree) canopies, so
we’ve been trying to talk to
growers,” Steere said.
He said he’s eager to hear
from a cross section of grow-
ers and that there are probably
several “best” canopies.
The robot was tested this
fall on several varieties and
orchards with the fruit graded
on packing lines.
Gala ran at 5.3 percent
cuts, punctures and bruises,
just slightly above 4 percent
of conventional hand picking,
Steere said.
Granny Smith was high at
over 20 percent and Fuji also
at 16, but Steere said he thinks
he knows how the damage
occurred and how to bring it
down.
“We’re defi nitely on a path
to production rather than fi g-
uring out from a blank page of
R&D (research and develop-
ment) if it’s possible or not,”
he said.
The key, he said, is unob-
structed access to the apple.
He said he’s staying focused
on apples and not yet thinking
of pears or cherries.
Spud offi cials optimistic
about prospects for crop
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
Potato industry leaders
are optimistic about demand
for a fall 2016 spud crop
that recent USDA estimates
show was slightly larger
than the previous year na-
tionally and signifi cantly
larger in the Northwest.
U.S. production, at
405.172 million hundred-
weight, was up by 471,000
hundredweight from the
2015 harvest. U.S. growers
planted about 20,000 fewer
acres this season, but their
average yields, at 451 hun-
dredweight per acre, were
up 18 hundredweight.
Ideal growing conditions
enabled farmers in Idaho,
Washington and Oregon to
make especially impressive
yield gains, and increase
combined production by
more than 16 million hun-
dredweight.
Idaho growers planted
325,000 potato acres, up
by 2,000 acres. Their av-
erage yields rose 27 hun-
dredweight per acre to 430
hundredweight,
boosting
total production by nearly
9 million hundredweight to
more than 139 million hun-
dredweight.
Washington
growers
kept acreage fl at at 170,000
acres, but yields averaging
630 hundredweight per acre
were up 40 hundredweight
from the previous year. The
state’s total production was
up more than 6 million hun-
dredweight.
Oregon growers also
maintained the same spud
acreage, planting 39,000
acres. Their yields were up
35 hundredweight per acre,
boosting production by
nearly 1.4 million hundred-
weight to 23.146 million
hundredweight.
“As far as size of the
crop, we knew yields would
be up from last year because
last year’s weather condi-
tions brought yields off of
trend-line,” said Idaho Po-
tato Commission President
and CEO Frank Muir.
Muir believes factors
have aligned for a down
potato market to improve —
holiday spud shipments have
been about 10 percent ahead
of last year’s pace, crop
quality and the size profi le
are ideal, IPC started adver-
tising programs a month ear-
ly in anticipation of a larger
crop and more than 5,000
entries are expected in the
organization’s Potato Lovers
Month retail display contest.
Muir also noted a recent IPC
study reaffi rmed the Idaho
potato brand has inelastic
demand — meaning ship-
pers shouldn’t discount their
spuds as consumers buy
roughly the same volume
even when prices rise. IPC is
preparing an info-graphic on
the elasticity study to show
retailers and shippers.
Potatoes USA Chief Mar-
keting Offi cer John Toaspern
sees positive signs for spud
demand both domestically
and abroad. His organization
was recently awarded more
than $4.8 million in USDA
Market Access Program
grants to improve foreign
potato access during Fiscal
Year 2017 — down 4.5 per-
cent as the agency had less
funding to disburse.
However, frozen fry
foreign exports have been
strengthening, and crop
challenges in Europe have
him bullish on exports. Oth-
er trade partners, such as
Taiwan and Korea, will have
to import more chipping
potatoes due to poor crops,
though the recent weaken-
ing of the peso has him con-
cerned about prospects in
Mexico.
Domestically, Toaspern
said, demand for specialty
potatoes is on the rise, and
the food service sector con-
tinues to be a bright spot.
“We see a lot of opportu-
nities, particularly in family
dining and the fast casual
area,” Toaspern said.
Demand for chips and
potato convenience products
is also up, he said.
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