12/13/06 Gazing into the Future of Fruit

Gazing into the future of fruit. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Jim McFerson like a lot of people enjoys science fiction but it's the science of the future that Jim believes is going to boost the tree fruit industry. MCFERSON: So what is technology? I've shown this one before and I still believe it that technology in many ways we still consider in a horticultural sense is the practical application of knowledge or it really any way of accomplishing a task especially using technical processes, methods or knowledge. So really it's not just about robots or machinery or gizmos. We have to add information technology in this information age and I think that we need to add biotechnology as we look at the future, the next 5, 10, 20 years. McFerson is the manager of the Washington State Tree Fruit Research Commission. He says that robotic technology is going to be playing a major role in the industry all the way from the orchard to your shopping cart. MCFERSON: Here we're getting a lot more personal. There's a robot developed in Japan; you give him an apple and that robot is going to tell you is it sweet for you? Is it too sweet for you? It knows your flavor profile and it can sense what that apple, what it's constituent elements are. So it may be able to tell you whether you should reject that apple or not. You could take it to the supermarket with you for example and put it in your cart and it could talk to you. Tomorrow Jim talks more about the future of fruit. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.