10/25/07 Getting Ready For The Convention

Getting Ready for the Convention. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The 2007 fruit harvest is all but in the record books with a few still finishing up so it's time to start planning the annual get together of the Washington State Horticultural Association. HAZEN: This is the 103rd Annual Meeting. One of the big issues confronting the industry that we will try to tackle at the convention this year is labor and just not the labor supply issue but also productivity and efficiency. And what are the options the industry has in the future in regards to labor. One of the main options would be mechanization of the industry and Hazen says that will be a main subject. HAZEN: There's some skepticism as to what's possible in the orchard and there's a lot of interesting projects occurring across the U.S., lots of different companies working on efforts and so we will try and pull some of those experts in to talk about some of the possibilities. Hazen says this year's speakers will cover some interesting areas. HAZEN: There's some really interesting folks coming in. The Batjer speaker is David Barrett from the Olin College of Engineering. He'll provide an update on the current state of agricultural robotics with specific examples from his student research projects. He's been working a lot with unmanned tractors, autonomous sensors and robotic harvesting equipment. His presentation should be really interesting for the industry to hear. For more information on the upcoming convention visit www.wahort.org. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.