Robotics thrust keeps Kiwis at leading edge

EACH YEAR, the local kiwifruit industry becomes more technology-focused as it seeks more efficiency - in growing, harvesting, packing and exporting - to maintain its position as a world leader.
Te Puna-based Pollen Plus is one company helping to keep the industry one step ahead of its overseas competitors.
The company, started by Steve Saunders in 2003, manufactures and supplies vital supplementary pollen and application systems to kiwifruit orchards, here and overseas.
In seven years, Pollen Plus has become the world's largest supplier of the sought-after pure chieftain male pollen, producing more than a tonne a year from more than 100 tonnes of flowers.
"Chieftain is the preferred male pollinator," said Mr Saunders, managing director of Pollen Plus. "We can guarantee a consistent pollen supply to orchards and help increase the fruit's shape, dry matter and quality.
"The supplementary pollen is like an insurance policy because growers don't know what they'll get every pollination season.
 "Green growers, for instance, can still make reasonable money if they increase their yields and fruit size, and we want to support them."
Pollen Plus first looks after the needs of the local growers but 40 per cent of its pollen production is exported to orchards in Australia, Japan, Korea, China and Italy that grow Zespri-branded kiwifruit.
Its efforts have been rewarded with a place in the Export NZ Bay of Plenty awards. Pollen Plus is a finalist in two categories - United Travel Emerging Exporter of the Year along with yacht builder Fastcraft, and Bird Winery and Vineyards; and Page & Macrae Innovation in Exporting alongside Puma Dart Products and Trimax Mowing System.
The winners will be named at the gala dinner in the Baypark Convention Centre on Friday night.
Pollen Plus has developed the world's largest kiwifruit pollen production blocks totalling 7.5 hectares - the biggest at Omanawa makes up a third of its annual supply. The other chieftain flowers are picked and bought at orchards covering 1500 hectares from Waihi to Opotiki in the Bay, and in Nelson and Motueka.
At the peak of the chieftain harvest during November, Pollen Plus employs up to 600 casual pickers. The flowers are harvested by hand at the "popcorn" stage (tight white bud), and the pickers have to work fast.
To maintain their full potential (viability), the flowers are rushed to mills at Omanawa, Te Puna and Motueka for processing, and the pollen is ready for distribution within 24 hours.
During the milling process, the pollen is dried and separated from the anther of the flower. The pollen is then weighed, batched, tested for purity and frozen.
It takes about 100 kilograms of flower to produce one kilogram of pure pollen. The pollen is supplied in 250 gram jars, enough to pollinate half a hectare in a kiwifruit orchard.
The pollen is applied in a liquid or dry form and Pollen Plus has introduced its own application systems to ensure the orchards get full and efficient coverage.
It has developed the QuadDuster, which has two large volutes with electric fans attached to the sides of a quad bike. The fans softly blow the pollen-laden air into the flowering canopy above - and any excess that settles on the kiwifruit flowers can be further distributed by the bees.
"The pollen dances in the flowers," said Mr Saunders, who had earlier developed the hand-held, motorised air blower. "The QuadBuster is a larger scale automation of the digital blowing system."
Pollen Plus has signed up AgFirst BOP as its licensed QuadBuster applicator. AgFirst's fleet of quad bikes are fitted with cruise control and GPS tracking to ensure the pollen is applied uniformly over the canopy.
This year, AgFirst will be operating 20 QuadBusters over more than 1200 hectares of kiwifruit orchards.
In association with Plant and Food Research, Pollen Plus is also trialling flower recognition technology that has sensors to detect the open flowers in the canopy, and application nozzles to directly target and apply the pollen to the flowers in liquid form.
"It has the potential to greatly reduce the volume of pollen required to pollinate one hectare," Mr Saunders said.
That's not all. Pollen Plus has been developing all-female orchards - no male pollination or bees - and, for fours year in a row, they have achieved yields of more than 11,000 trays a hectare, above the industry standard.
In a further bid to reduce orchard costs, Mr Saunders is in the final stages of introducing a Robotics thrust keeps kiwifruit industry at leading edge
robotic kiwifruit picker. The machine was developed in conjunction with a Massey University PhD student Alistair Scarfe who formed his own company, Southern Cross Robotics.
Mr Saunders' Robotics Plus has the marketing rights for the robot. On a four-wheel-drive platform with four picking arms, the GPS-guided robot picks fruit along the rows of vines. When its bin is full, the robot delivers it to the dump area and collects a new one. Eventually, the machine will identify every piece of fruit and notify the packhouse of the fruit status before the bin arrives.
"By the end of May next year, we will have the machine working 24 hours every day picking fruit," said Mr Saunders. The goal is to have the first commercial picking robots for the 2012 season.
Brought up in the Bay, Mr Saunders first worked for Tharfield Nursery, north of Tauranga. It was established in 1963 to produce kiwifruit plants but now grows various exotic fruit and ornamental shrubs.
Mr Saunders spent time in Queensland as the plant health manager for General Nurseries before returning home and becoming operations manager for Te Puna Pack and Cool, now DMS.
Thirteen years ago, he established GroLink and the first growers' trust, Independent Kiwi Ltd, with former Pack and Cool chief executive Trevor Heard. GroLink organised orchard management and post-harvest services for the growers.
The two partners then went their separate way, and Mr Saunders started the Plus group of companies in 2003. GroPlus employs eight managers and 15 other permanent staff to operate 120 kiwifruit orchards from Katikati to Pukehina.
During the peak of the winter pruning in July, GroPlus contracts up to 300 people. But Mr Saunders wasn't content with just orchard management.
He established Pollen Plus for pollination, RoboticsPlus for the new technology and Bio Soil and Crop for soil fertility programmes.
"I love the kiwifruit industry," said Mr Saunders. "I want to help lift productivity and fruit quality, and give the growers better returns.
"A lot of our revenue has gone back into innovation and I'd like to think that when I've retired I've a left mark on the industry."