Friday, March 26, 2021
CapitalPress.com 9
Robot: Goal: Design a rock-picking tool that can be operated by anyone
Continued from Page 1
a solution existed. Some-
one just needed to put them
together.
“When I see something, a
problem that has never been
solved, it motivates me to
solve it,” he said.
That led to collaboration
and discussions with for-
mer partners, colleagues and
acquaintances.
The result was Frei’s
fourth company, TerraClear,
which is focused on design-
ing a fully automated rock
picker. The company offi-
cially launched in Decem-
ber 2017.
The goal was to design
a rock-picking tool that can
be operated by anyone, Frei
said.
Research and develop-
ment has taken 3 years and
$10 million, and the com-
pany has received a lot of
input from farmers.
First, the system uses a
drone to determine the size
and location of every rock
on a field. That information
is mapped and the most effi-
cient path for picking up the
rocks is plotted.
The picker attachment
hooks onto a skid steer and
the driver follows the path
on the map to pick the rocks.
The system works under
any field conditions, such as
stubble, pasture or residue.
“This thing can just pick
the rock and leave every-
thing alone,” Frei said.
Rock and roll“There are
lots of other rock pickers out
there,” said Heidi Lindsley,
the company’s marketing
director. “We believe ours
has a unique niche.”
Some mechanical pick-
ers only work in certain situ-
ations, such as heavily tilled
soil, and a farmer still has to
scout every inch of the field,
she said.
“Ours is really intended
to replace hand-picking and
be able to focus in on selec-
tive rock picking,” she said.
It saves a lot of time
and is more efficient, going
directly to where the rocks
are instead of combing the
whole field, she said.
TerraClear’s picker has
hydraulic controls to allow
for back-and-forth, up-and-
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Heidi Linsley, TerraClear marketing director, talks to agriculture students during a demonstration of the compa-
ny’s robotic rock picker at the College of Southern Idaho in Twin Falls on March 10.
LEARN MORE
For more information and
videos of the rock picker,
visit www.terraclear.com .
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Heidi Linsley, TerraClear marketing director, and Ryan Frei, head of operations for
the company, explain how the robotic rock picker works.
Carol Ryan Dumas/Capital Press
Ryan Frei, head of operations for TerraClear, helps an
agriculture student at the College of Southern Idaho get
the hang of operating the company’s robotic rock picker.
down movement of the
picker and in-and-out move-
ment of the rock paddles,
she said.
On average, it can pick a
full loader bucket of rocks
every 8 to 15 minutes, but
that will vary based on the
density of the rocks and the
distance between the rocks
and the dumping location,
she said.
The company put 12
rock-picking units in the
hands of farmers this spring
to get their feedback before
going commercial this fall.
The company also pro-
vides an on-demand service
that uses a drone to map the
size and locations of rocks
in a field. Then the farmer
can follow the map the
drone produces to more effi-
ciently pick the rocks. The
map shows the location and
size of every rock 8 inches
or larger.
TerraClear also offers a
rock-picking service, a help
to farmers with a short time
window before seeding.
“We can whip in there
and get their problem out for
a few hundred bucks. The
majority of people we’ve
done it for want us back,”
Frei said.
The next version of the
picker will have a computer
vision system mounted on
the tractor, loader or skid
steer. A driver will operate
the vehicle, while the rock
picker mechanically snags
the rocks and puts them in
the loader bucket. Proto-
types are expected this fall.
The longer term vision
is for a fully autonomous,
independent piece of equip-
ment. It’s still several years
out, but it will be an oper-
ator-free vehicle with a
picker, Lindsley said.
Rock solidMost of the
feedback from farmers has
been positive. They have
made suggestions, but farm-
ers like the utility of it and
the ability to pick a lot of
rock in a short time, Frei
said.
The company recently
offered a demonstration
of the picker for agricul-
ture students at the College
of Southern Idaho in Twin
Falls, and several were jos-
tling for a chance to oper-
ate it.
Frei is not surprised after
seeing two workers on one
farm fighting over who gets
to use the picker.
“It will take rock picking
from worst (chore) to first,”
he said.
And agriculture is taking
notice. TerraClear recently
gained national attention
as one of four finalists in
the American Farm Bureau
Federation’s 2021 Ag Inno-
vation Challenge.
The focus now is getting
the picker to full autonomy,
where it picks and piles
rocks of its own accord —
“a Roomba for rock pick-
ing,” Frei said, comparing
it to an autonomous vacuum
cleaner. “...It’s pretty darn
exciting.”
Frei anticipated the
hard part of developing a
rock-picking robot would be
designing a tool that could
pick all sizes of rock. He
gives kudos to TerraClear’s
design team, which has met
that challenge.
“I’ve been really encour-
aged,” he said.
His previous companies
were successful because of
great people on the team, and
the TerraClear group is “the
best team yet,” he said.
The company has 23
employees, all stockholders,
with offices and workshops in
Bellevue, Wash., and Gran-
geville, Idaho. The team has
deep experience in software,
hardware, machine learning,
product development, leader-
ship and farming.
The company will con-
tinue to work on a solution
for full automation in clear-
ing rock, which would be a
game-changer for agricul-
ture — and a relief to farm
kids.
“If we’ve done a good
job, farmers will love it,”
Frei said.
Official warns there’s a wasp worse Hornets: ‘Don’t
assume that if you
than an Asian giant hornet
find bees without
By DON JENKINS
Capital Press
Washington and British Columbia
must be vigilant against invasive wasps,
including one more “ominous” than the
Asian giant hornet, a Canadian official
said Wednesday.
British Columbia provincial apicul-
turist Paul van Westendorp said he was
particularly concerned about a smaller
Asian hornet, Vespa velutina, unknown
in North America but a scourge in
Europe.
Its predatory behavior — it prefers
honey bees — and larger nests make it
more dangerous, he said. “That is a far
more ominous threat.”
Washington and B.C. officials talked
during a video press conference about
their plans to trap Asian giant hornets,
the world’s largest wasps. The hornets
are considered a threat to native pollina-
tors, the ecosystem, and people and pets
that unwittingly disturb nests.
The trapping season won’t begin in
earnest until July, but warm spring days
will bring out queens looking to create
nests.
Asian giant hornets, Vespa manda-
rinia, were unknown in North America
until 2019. Genetic tests linked a hornet
found in B.C. to hornets in Japan, while
those found in Whatcom County were
linked to hornets in South Korea. The
tests are inconclusive, but suggest sepa-
rate introductions.
Washington Department of Agri-
culture entomologist Sven Spichiger
said mated queens looking for a protec-
tive place to spend the winter probably
stowed away aboard ships.
“We think that’s probably how it got
here,” he said. “We believe it probably
hitched a ride in some kind of commod-
ity as a fertilized queen looking to spend
the winter.”
A few months before the first Asian
giant hornet detection in B.C., another
Asian hornet, Vespa soror, a sister spe-
cies to Vespa velutina, was found in Van-
couver Harbor.
Vespa veluntina appeared in southern
France in 2004 and has spread to Spain,
Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Italy and
the United Kingdom. According to the
European Commission, the hornet’s
heads that it was
Asian giant hornets’
Continued from Page 1
WSDA
An Asian giant hornet with the track-
ing device tied to it. This year, the
Washington State Department of
Agriculture will use kevlar thread in-
stead of dental floss.
preference for honey bees makes it a
major problem for crop pollination.
“We will be prone to future introduc-
tions of these kinds of invasive species,”
Westendorp said. “This is going to be an
ongoing challenge.
“I think that’s where much of the
focus should be at some point,” he said.
All 31 Asian giant hornets detected
in the U.S. so far have been in northern
Whatcom County. All six hornets found
in Canada have been just to the north in
the Fraser Valley. Washington tracked
one live hornet back to a nest last year
and eradicated about 500 hornets.
The agriculture department will hang
about 1,500 traps in northern Whatcom
County, Spichiger said.
The department also hopes volunteers
in northwest Washington will hang traps,
baited with either orange juice and rice
wine or a less expensive mixture of one
cup brown sugar and one cup water.
Hornets drown in the traps, but pre-
liminary trapping helps the department
pinpoint where it can find a live hornet.
The department plans to again tie elec-
tronic tracking devices on live hornets
and follow them to their nests.
Spichiger said entomologists plan this
year to tie on devices with Kevlar thread,
rather than dental floss, which proved
no match last year for one Asian giant
hornet.
“It’s really annoying to tie a tag onto
a hornet and to watch her chew it off in a
few seconds. It’s disheartening,” he said.
say it will have a negative effect on
agriculture is premature.
“The hobbyists who don’t move
their hives are probably at biggest
risk,” he said. “Most of the com-
mercial guys have already com-
pleted their pollination.”
Asian
honeybees
have
co-evolved with giant hornets
and developed defenses, such as
swarming and heating to death lone
hornets. More recently, researchers
have observed bees smearing hives
with animal feces to repel hornets.
North American honeybees, pre-
sumably, would be hapless victims.
Beekeepers already have trou-
bles. Thompson said he’s more
worried about parasitic varroa
mites. Lawrence said mice and
shrew decapitate honeybees, too.
“Don’t assume that if you find
bees without heads that it was
Asian giant hornets,” Lawrence
said.
Researchers are studying the
potential for Asian giant hornets to
spread out from northern Whatcom
County. So far, the thinking is that
Eastern Washington winters are too
cold for hibernating queens.
“There’s little chance they’ll
ever get established here,” said
Tim Hiatt, a commercial beekeeper
in the Columbia Basin.
If Asian giant hornets do spread
in the more temperate Western
Washington, stationery hives main-
tained by hobbyists will be “sitting
ducks,” he said.
The hobbyist beekeepers help
keep the westside landscape green,
Hiatt said.
“Washington has a lot of hob-
byist beekeepers, and I’m really
glad WSDA is involved in shutting
down the threat,” he said. “Keep-
ing invasive species from spread-
ing is something they’re darn good
at.”
ODFW
Officials are still investigating how five wolves
found Feb. 9 died.
Wolves: Plan allows for
ranchers to legally kill wolves
that prey on livestock
Continued from Page 1
Union, Ore., and wolf
committee co-chairman
for the Oregon Cattle-
men’s Association, said
the relationship between
wolves and local pro-
ducers remains conten-
tious, due in part to what
he describes as “shoddy”
management
of
the
species.
Oregon’s Wolf Man-
agement and Conserva-
tion Plan allows for ranch-
ers and wildlife officials
to legally kill wolves
that prey on livestock if
they reach a certain num-
ber of “confirmed” dep-
redations within a cer-
tain time period, and
non-lethal deterrents have
failed.
But Huffman said it is
frustratingly difficult to
“confirm” a wolf depre-
dation, unless it is found
and reported immediately,
leaving ranchers in a diffi-
cult predicament.
”The wolf population
is not a celebrated thing
in cattle country,” he said.
“It’s frustration, there’s no
doubt about it.”
Wolf poaching is not
unheard of in Eastern Ore-
gon. Two incidents were
reported last year in neigh-
boring Baker County —
one in late September, a
breeding male from the
Cornucopia Pack, and
another in late October, a
sub-adult female from the
Pine Creek Pack.
Gobush said apex pred-
ators like wolves play an
important role in the eco-
system, and should be
protected.
Defenders of Wild-
life also supports a bill
in the Legislature that
would help crack down
on poachers, Gobush said.
Senate Bill 841 would
appropriate $1.6 million
from the state general fund
to support the Department
of Justice’s Environmen-
tal Crimes and Cultural
Resources Enforcement
Unit.
The bill, sponsored by
Democratic Sens. James
Manning Jr., Chris Gorsek
and Deb Patterson, is
scheduled for a public
hearing on April 5.