Automation Assistance for Tree Fruit

Automation Assistance for Tree Fruit

Automation Assistance for Tree Fruit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.

There is a new way of keeping tabs on a lot of the time consuming tasks around your orchard like checking pest traps. Semios CEO, Michael Gilbert discusses their wireless service for orchardists.

GILBERT: So we look at four different areas: insects, disease, frost and irrigation. The one that's most developed is for insect control. What we do there is we do a variety of things. We do a variety of things. We do things like calculating the per acre temperatures, humidity and barometric pressure which allow us to model theoretically when insects like the codling moth or oriental fruit moth, when would they be emerging.

Gilbert says they also have a number of other modules.

GILBERT: That allow growers to remotely take pictures of their traps in the fields on a daily basis so rather than having someone walk out and check your insect traps manually once every two or three weeks we can actually remotely check trap counts on a daily basis. The last one we do in terms of insect management is we have a remotely controlled and metered pheromone delivery system for mating disruption.

Semios offers their services on a per acre basis.

GILBERT: They don't buy the equipment up front, they're not paying for installation, they're not paying anything up front. They pay the same fee per acre per year to get the services they want.

Check out their website at www.semios.com.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.

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