May 2022 - 10

Grower, researcher look at the viability of FruitScout
By Gary Pullano
Editor
(This is the second installment in a
two-part series looking at FruitScout, a
smartphone app that
uses computer vision
technology to determine
the optimal capacity of
a fruiting tree by taking
a picture of the trunk,
buds, blossoms and fruits.)
Mark Boyer, the former chair of the
you go out and take pictures of your trees.
Within that, the idea is you're trying to
maintain the optimum crop load. "
Boyer noted that on FruitScout's website,
High-Tech Tools
2022
" it says their product has the potential to
deliver between $5,000 and $10,000 per
acre in increased productivity, and that
1,000 trees per acre results in additional
potential income of $1 to $3 per tree. "
Ridgetop Orchards used FruitScout in an
attempt to monitor fruit sizing, bud counts,
counts at bloom, fruit counting, tracking
U.S. Apple Association board of directors,
constantly seeks efficient and accurate ways
of producing a profitable apple crop.
Boyer is the second-generation owner
of Ridgetop Orchards, a grower-packershipper
in Fishertown, Pennsylvania.
One of the mechanisms Boyer has
explored on his farm is FruitScout, a
precision crop load management app used
on a smartphone to track buds that turn
to blooms, and on through fruitlets to fullcolor
fruit at harvest - all in an effort to
pinpoint the economically optimum crop
load goal.
Boyer made a presentation on his use
of FruitScout, along with Penn State
University Professor of Horticulture Rich
Marini, at this year's Mid-Atlantic Fruit
& Vegetable Convention in Hershey,
Pennsylvania.
" We have 10 different varieties of apples,
all biennial bearing (which has trees that
have an irregular crop load from year to
year), " Boyer said. " Biennial bearing is a real
problem, especially when you start growing
Honeycrisp, which is our No. 1 variety at
104 acres, 84 of that in production, with 20
more coming into production. All of our
apples, except for Fuji, have a parentage of
Honeycrisp, which can be not so fun. "
Escalating labor costs and availability are
among other reasons growers like Boyer are
seeking technological solutions.
He said he was intrigued by FruitScout,
" a smartphone or android system where
the growth model and sizing.
" We took photos of a handful of trees
to see how well we could get them to size, "
Boyer said. " There were some (FruitScout)
functions we just couldn't use, " Boyer said.
" During the thinning window, there was a
little bit of lag time. The company was new,
and is building staff and resources and stuff
like that.
" We've never been successful at tracking
fruitlet size because, realistically, at the end
of the day in Pennsylvania you have about
two windows, " Boyer said. " You've got one
at about nine or 10 millimeters, and you
have one other window after that. You are
either going to thin,
or you're not going
to thin. I don't know
how we overcome
that. We have to be
able to track fruit, I
understand that. But
it is a tough task. By
the time that you can
see fruit, basically it
stops growing and it's
not going to stick around and you already
have to make your decision about whether
you're going to hit it a second time.
" Applications for thinning measure
fruitlets after the first round of chemical
thinning and every three to seven days, "
Boyer said. " We apply thinner at nine to
12 days, weather permitting, and then
hopefully catch a second window later. It's
the same problem with some other models.
Marini's methods included working
You have one or two good windows. "
Boyer said it is essential to " get
information back in real time. The
(FruitScout) information was so slow
(coming) back. It doesn't save time.
" I do believe that the system will probably
work better on a two-dimensional-type
tree. You put this on a bigger tree, I think
the harder time you're going to have
counting the fruit that's on the tree's back
side, " Boyer said.
" There's maybe some confusion with
FruitScout and me on whether or not you
can take pictures at this stage and get an
accurate count. Apparently, FruitScout is
saying that you can take pictures before
you hand-thin, and take pictures after you
hand-thin, and it will tell you how many
pieces of fruit are left behind.
" Secondly, where I was hoping we could
go somewhere in the future with FruitScout
is preharvest photos of fruit on a tree where
you can get a pre-sizer. So, whenever you
go to a block you know what you're peaking
on for the packing houses so you can send
in trays or bags, you know what blocks you
can go to and keep those records.
" FruitScout has been really willing to
work with us. That's been great. It's been
an adventure to do this. With every type
of new technology that comes out there's a
learning curve and difficulties. "
MARK BOYER
A researcher's evaluation
Penn State's Marini visited Boyer's
orchard to conduct an evaluation of
FruitScout technology for predicting
Honeycrisp blossom cluster and fruit set.
" I've been working on trying to predict
by taking measurements of average fruit
size, mostly on the research side, for 30-35
years, " Marini told the Mid-Atlantic event's
audience. " I was interested in working with
Mark to see how much this system actually
estimates the real thing. "
with 15 Honeycrisp and 15 Fuji trees, each
within one row. Boyer had taken photos
of trunks and trees in bloom to estimated
apple trunk cross-sectional area and bloom
density.
" I was there a little bit after petal fall, "
Marini said. " It wasn't quite time to thin
yet, but I counted the fruit clusters that had
fruit on each tree. I did that about 10 days
after bloom using a tape measure. "
" It was several thousand fruit, so it
took me a few
days, " Marini said.
" I wanted to know
if measuring 10
fruit per tree with
the photo would
do a good job in
estimating the
value. I used various
statistical and
graphical techniques
to compare estimated values with observed
values. " Mark and I had measured the same
15 trees. "
Marini said, " FruitScout did a pretty
RICH MARINI
good job of measuring trunk size. I was
quite surprised. But, in analyzing the data
sets, I had never seen a situation where you
have two means that are so close together
and we're correlated. I don't get that. "
" I did same type of thing for the cluster
counts. FruitScout measured one side
of the tree. I did both sides. I expected
my cluster counts to be higher, and they
were a lot higher. It was due to some of
the cross sections hiding the clusters by
looking at it on just one side. The estimated
(FruitScout) values were significantly less
than the values that I counted. They didn't
correlate that well.
" Since then, we've learned that probably
wasn't the appropriate way to look at it, "
Marini said. " The way we would do it is not
the way FruitScout would do it. We did not
know that FruitScout adjusts cluster values
for occlusion, using photos before bloom,
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May 2022

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