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CapitalPress.com
Friday, August 12, 2022
People & Places
Looking at the big picture
By BRAD CARLSON
Capital Press
MOSCOW, Idaho — Ed
Lewis and Shirley Luckhart
help innovations progress as
part of a whole picture instead
of only an isolated factor.
The
husband-and-wife
team directs the University of
Idaho Institute for Health in
the Human Ecosystem, which
they founded in 2017.
“The idea was to bring
together research, teach-
ing and outreach interests
that explore the intersec-
tions among plant, animal
and human health from the
sub-cellular scale up to the
ecosystem scale,” Luckhart
said.
She said researchers too
often do their own work with-
out interacting with each other
enough, and do not effectively
leverage the many biological
parallels and other important
drivers of plant, animal and
human health.
“We need to break down
the intellectual silos in plant,
animal and human health,”
Luckhart said.
Researchers “can’t just
keep going into these com-
plex ecosystems working on
one small and narrow focus,
not understanding the broader
impacts of any intervention,
and expect the solution will
be sustainable,” she said.
More
intentional,
cross-discipline communica-
tion will lead to better solu-
tions to ecosystem problems
ranging from drought and
invasive plants to diseases
such as malaria, which Luck-
hart has studied for 27 years.
For example, invasive
plants are “a huge prob-
lem for plant health, animal
health and human health,”
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ED LEWIS
AND SHIRLEY
LUCKHART
Occupations: Co-direc-
tors, University of Idaho
Institute for Health in the
Human Ecosystem.
UI
Shirley Luckhart and Ed Lewis in their lab space at the University of Idaho’s Integrat-
ed Research and Innovation Center in Moscow. They are co-directors of the Institute
for Health in the Human Ecosystem.
she said, adding that they
are best researched collab-
oratively because they har-
bor crop-damaging patho-
gens, provide a host for insect
pests, may poison livestock
and often outcompete native
plants for water and other
resources. In some parts of the
world, invasive plants’ abun-
dant nectar can help increase
populations of disease-carry-
ing mosquitoes.
Lewis said pesticides pro-
vide another example of
cross-disciplinary challenges.
Most pesticides used to spray
mosquitos to promote pub-
lic health were first used in
agriculture.
“So there are examples of
‘new’ insecticides for mos-
quitoes used on mosquitoes
already resistant to them,” he
said.
Because of that, agricul-
ture entomologists and pub-
lic health researchers need to
work together to find what
works best for public health
and also best incorporates les-
sons agriculture learned over
years of using a chemical,
Lewis said.
Invasive plants and uses
of insecticides in agricul-
ture and public health were
among the challenges pre-
sented at an annual six-day
course on vector-borne dis-
ease biology the institute
hosted in mid-June.
Insect-borne disease is a
major problem in much of
the world. Lewis said human
factors including deforesta-
tion, urbanization and climate
change, which affect the biol-
ogy of vectors and pathogens.
But controlling a disease
vector insect or invasive plant
could come at a cost, such as
crop health.
As part of the course,
research teams sought com-
prehensive solutions that
address plant, animal and
human health.
Luckhart also said local
people can provide infor-
mation important to creat-
ing a sustainable strategy,
an opportunity researchers
often don’t pursue enough.
A $500,000
USDA
Research and Experiences
for Undergraduates grant
supports training more than
100 undergraduates over
five years to do research
projects, with help from fac-
ulty mentors. They deal with
plant, animal and human
health. Lewis is the princi-
pal investigator, and Luck-
hart and UI’s Glen Stevens
are co-investigators.
The institute also offers
Educations: Lewis —
B.S., Cornell University,
1980; M.S., University
of Missouri, 1987; Ph.D.,
entomology, Auburn Uni-
versity, 1991. Luckhart —
B.S., University of Florida,
1986; M.S., Auburn, 1990;
Ph.D., entomology, Rut-
gers, 1995.
Family: Married to each
other. Met at Auburn
University.
Hometowns: Lewis —
Auburn, N.Y. Luckhart —
Youngstown, Ohio.
Residence: Moscow,
Idaho.
Hobbies: Fishing, camp-
ing, finding antiques.
By MOLLY CRUSE
Capital Press
Kyle Cobb/Advanced Farm
Advanced Farm’s robotic harvesters drive autonomous-
ly over strawberry beds. One harvester can pick 100
pounds of strawberries per hour.
labor in particular,” he said.
“And the challenge with the
hard tasks that humans do
today, we wanted to try and
automate some of that.”
Strawberries are one of the
most labor-intensive crops in
the U.S. Unlike some other
crops that now are predomi-
nantly harvested by machin-
ery, strawberries still require
hand-picking.
Strawberry
harvesting
machines have not existed
because harvesting the deli-
cate fruit is a tricky business.
“(The robots) have to be
rugged because they’re out
in real field conditions, so
that’s been a real challenge,”
said Daniel Sumner, an agri-
cultural economist at the Uni-
versity of California-Davis.
“And asking a robot to do
delicate things like reach out
with little fingers and decide
whether a strawberry is ripe
or not and look behind a leaf
to find it — that’s tough.”
According to a UC-Da-
vis Department of Agricul-
tural and Resource Econom-
ics 2021 report, harvesting
one acre of strawberries costs
farmers between $30,000 and
$50,000 in labor costs.
Cobb believes improving
technology is the answer.
“When you really look at
the numbers and specialty
crops, in particular, so much
of the system is designed
around humans, which results
in really high costs for things
like labor that can only be
addressed through robotics,”
Cobb said.
Four years after starting
Advanced Farm, Cobb and
his team had developed a
strawberry harvesting robot.
Each robot features four
“picking” arms and, accord-
ing to Cobb, one person can
operate five machines at once.
“This past season, I’d say,
is when we really turned the
corner,” said Cobb. “We’ve
picked millions of strawber-
ries in 2022 so far, and we
have 16 machines contracted.
So we’re well past the single
prototype testing phase, and
we’re now focused on scaling
the business and growing our
fleet size.”
But some experts say
robotics may not be the
be-all-end-all solution for all
strawberry farmers. While
robotic harvesters may be
practical for larger scale
growers and shippers, they
may not be viable economic
or practical solutions for
smaller farms.
“Agriculture
changes
slowly, so I see the integra-
tion of robots to be a more
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Idaho
Carol Ryan Dumas ..............208-860-3898
supervised access to fluo-
rescence and luminescence
imaging technology and
supports an advanced con-
tainment facility for vector
arthropods.
“Ultimately we want to
develop sustainable solu-
tions to protect health and
mitigate disease,” Luckhart
said.
Robotic strawberry harvesters take to the fields
DAVIS, Calif. — Walk
into any grocery store this
summer, and chances are you
will be greeted by rows of
strawberries. Until recently,
each of those berries would
have
been
individually
hand-picked by legions of
farmworkers.
But Kyle Cobb, the
co-founder and president of
Advanced Farm, is chang-
ing that. “In the history of the
world, no piece of fresh fruit
or veg has been picked by
anything but a human hand,”
said Cobb.
Cobb started Advanced
Farm, an agricultural robot-
ics company based in Davis,
Calif., in 2018 along with
three other founders: Carl
Allendorph, Mark Grossman
and Cedric Jeanty.
“We decided to take our
skills in robotics and apply
them to ag,” said Cobb, who
along with the same founding
team members, had started a
robotics company 15 years
before in the solar industry.
“Davis is a big ag town
and so we are always inspired
by the problems that we see
and that our grower friends
are seeing, with respect to
Carl Sampson .................. Managing Editor
gradual thing,” said Mark
Bolda, director of the Univer-
sity of California’s Santa Cruz
County Cooperative Exten-
sion and a berry specialist.
While Bolda agrees that
robotics and advancing tech-
nology are necessary for agri-
culture as a whole, he remains
skeptical about the incorpora-
tion of robots into the industry
and the economic viability of
the robots.
Yet, Cobb remains hope-
ful the robotic strawberry
harvester will revolution-
ize
strawberry
picking
and change the face of the
industry.
“I think we can have a
really big impact on the indus-
try just by, frankly, helping it
sustain as an industry here in
the U.S. Growers are having a
really hard time finding labor
that they need,” said Cobb.
“So we can bridge that gap
and provide another solution
and in the meantime also sig-
nificantly improve the work-
ing conditions for the farm-
workers that are left and
bring them into better jobs
that they’re much more bio-
logically suited to do, like
sorting and packing fruit,
operating machinery, main-
taining equipment, things
like that.”
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CALENDAR
Submit upcoming ag-related
events on www.capitalpress.com
or by email to newsroom@capital-
press.com. All times reflect the local
time zone unless otherwise noted.
SATURDAY
AUG. 13
12:15 p.m. Miller Research, 422 E.
200 N. Rupert, Idaho. Plant pathol-
ogist Jeff Miller to host. Event to
focus on chemical management
of diseases, highlight research
by Pacific Northwest Potato
Research Consortium. Pesticide
and pest-management credits have
been requested. Lunch to follow.
Website: https://bit.ly/3IC8pon
Family Forest Field Day —
Southwest Washington: 9 a.m.-4 p.m.
L & H Family Tree Farm, 1309 King
Road, Winlock, Wash. Whether you
own a “home in the woods” or many
acres of land, this “out in the woods”
educational event is packed with prac-
tical “how-to” information that you
need to know. Learn more at https://
forestry.wsu.edu/sw/fd2022/.
Western Idaho Fair: 11 a.m.
Western Idaho Fairgrounds, 5610
Glenwood St., Boise. Western Idaho
gets together annually for this cel-
ebration of country living. Website:
https://idahofair.com
SATURDAY-SUNDAY
AUG. 13-14
WEDNESDAY
AUG. 24
Dufur Threshing Bee 2022:
6 a.m.-3 p.m. Main St., Dufur, Ore.
Relive the good old days at the Dufur
Threshing Bee. Included will be black-
smiths, a one-room school house, the
Dufur Historical Society, petting zoo,
food booths and artists’ booths, tractor
pull, vintage car show, hometown din-
ner and a steam engine display. Con-
tact: Nancy Gibson, 541-993-3429.
WEDNESDAY AUG. 17
Miller Research Potato Pest
Management Field Day: 10 a.m.-
AUG. 19-28
Oregon State University Mal-
heur Experiment Station Onion
Variety Day: 9 am.-1 p.m. OSU Mal-
heur Experiment Station, 595 Onion
Ave., Ontario, Ore. 97914 Website:
https://bit.ly/3PDBkLb
AUG. 26-SEPT. 5
Oregon State Fair: 10 a.m. Ore-
gon State Fair & Exposition Center,
2330 17th St. NE, Salem. The Ore-
gon State Fair continues through
Sept. 5. Website: https://oregon-
statefair.org/
SEPT. 2-10
Eastern Idaho State Fair: East-
ern Idaho Fairgrounds, 97 Park St.,
Blackfoot, Idaho. It’s fair time in
Idaho. Website: https://funatthefair.
com/general-info/
SEPT. 2-25
Washington State Fair:
10:30 a.m. Puyallup Fairgrounds,
110 9th Ave. SW, Puyallup, Wash.
The Washington State Fair is the
largest single attraction held annu-
ally in the state of Washington.
Closed Tuesdays and Sept. 7. Web-
site: https://www.thefair.com/
THURSDAY
SEPT. 8
Farm & Ranch Succession
Planning and Working Lands
Easements: 12:30- 4 p.m. OSU
Malheur County Extension, 710
Southwest 5th Ave., Ontario, Ore.
Attorney June Flores will present
on the topics of succession and
estate planning, and how to pre-
pare your operation to be resil-
ient for future generations. Ease-
ment specialist Marc Hudson will
answer your questions about
working lands conservation ease-
ments —what they are, what they
aren’t, and how they may be help-
ful in executing your agricultural
300 words. Deadline: Noon Monday.
business plans. These in-person
events are part of a free 6-work-
shop series in Lake, Harney and
Malheur counties. All are wel-
come, and the events are free.
RSVP for these or any of OAT’s
other events and refer any ques-
tions about the event to diane@
oregonagtrust.org 503-858-2683
FRIDAY
SEPT. 9
Farm & Ranch Succession
Planning and Working Lands
Easements: 12:30- 4 p.m. Burns
Elks Lodge, 18 N. Broadway Ave.,
Burns, Ore. Attorney June Flores
will present on the topics of suc-
cession and estate planning, and
how to prepare your operation to
be resilient for future generations.
Easement specialist Marc Hud-
son will answer your questions
about working lands conserva-
tion easements —what they are,
what they aren’t, and how they
may be helpful in executing your
agricultural business plans. These
in-person events are part of a free
6-workshop series in Lake, Har-
ney and Malheur counties. All are
welcome, and the events are free.
RSVP for these or any of OAT’s
other events and refer any ques-
tions about the event to diane@
oregonagtrust.org 503-858-2683
SATURDAY
OCT. 1
Free Waste Pesticide Collec-
tion Event in White City: Rogue
Transfer and Recycling, 8001 Table
Rock Road, White City, Ore. The
Oregon Department of Agricul-
ture through the Pesticide Stew-
ardship Partnership is sponsoring
a Free Waste Pesticide Collec-
tion Event. This event is an oppor-
tunity for landowners, farmers
and other commercial pesti-
cide users to rid storage facili-
ties of unwanted or unused pes-
ticide products. Contact: Kathryn
Rifenburg, 971-600-5073, kathryn.
rifenburg@oda.oregon.gov Reg-
istration for this event is required
by Sept. 16. Website: https://bit.
ly/3FIoyFE
WEDNESDAY-
SUNDAY
OCT. 5-9
Trailing of the Sheep Festi-
val: Ketchum, Idaho. The five-day
festival includes activities in mul-
tiple venues and culminates with
the big sheep parade down Main
Street in Ketchum. Website: https://
www.trailingofthesheep.org
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Index
Markets .................................................12
Opinion ...................................................6
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