September 2021 - 10

Future visions
A Q&A with Anna Wallis of Michigan State University
ANNA WALLIS
By Stephen Kloosterman
Associate Editor
Apple growers around Grand Rapids,
Michigan, this season have a new source
of information and advice.
Michigan State University (MSU)
Extension specialist Anna Wallis started
work at the end of January covering apple
horticulture in the greater Grand Rapids
area. As the heir apparent to legendary
Phil Schwallier, she'll work closely with
Amy Irish-Brown, who covers pest
management for MSU Extension.
Wallis previously was busy earning a
Ph.D. in plant pathology from Cornell
University. There, she worked with
professor Kerick Cox, mostly on fire
blight related matters. Prior to that,
she worked for Cornell Cooperative
Extension for three years as a tree fruit
specialist in Northeastern New York. She
also has a master's degree in horticulture
from the University of Maryland, where
she worked with Chris Walsh on a
number of tree fruit projects.
In late July, as a part of her job,
Wallis took part for the first time in the
Michigan Pomesters' RidgeFest event,
hosting a session on computer vision
technologies for precision apple growers. In
addition to a demonstration of how MSU
researchers were using drone-mounted
systems to collect orchard data, three private
companies - Farm Vision, Fruit Scout and
VIVID Machines - gave presentations
on their own projects and how growers
could buy them or get involved in their
development.
Fruit Growers News caught up to
Wallis after the event to discuss her new
job and her outlook on the developing
field of computer vision in horticulture:
Fruit Growers News: Phil Schwallier
is very well-known in the industry as
an educator, but he's also a grower with
a farm market, and in recent years has
still turned out to those frigid February
orchard tours held by the International
Fruit Tree Association. As his successor,
what have you learned about him?
Anna Wallis: Phil's relationships with
the people around him - his family, the
grower community, MSU and other
university scientists, private industry, the
International tree fruit community - are
profound and meaningful. He is patient
and deliberate and loves what he is doing.
We are working closely on many research
trials this year. I'm so grateful to have
such a wonderful mentor.
FGN: What percentage of your time
do you expect to spend on research going
forward as opposed to grower education?
What are your research interests?
AW: I expect to spend about 20% of
my time focusing on research. A lot of
this will be related to thinning and crop
management, continuing the legacy Phil
has created. I will also continue work on
variety and rootstock selections and have
started working on climate resiliency
and extreme weather mitigation, as well
as incorporation of new technology
to improve orchard efficiency. I view
research as an integral part of grower
education in Extension. Having on-farm
trials is essential to prove (or disprove)
and demonstrate solutions to farmers,
connecting the incredible work university
scientists are doing to real scenarios and
using grower feedback to guide future
research efforts.
FGN: I really enjoyed the recent
computer vision presentation you hosted
at the Michigan Pomesters' RidgeFest. I
know advanced growers are commonly
counting buds and making complex
decisions about thinning. Are computer
vision technologies going to be the next
step in precision apple growing, in your
opinion?
AW: Computer vision is going to be
integral to the adoption of precision
agriculture. Bud counting and fruitlet
measuring can be incredibly helpful for
crop load management, but they are
tedious, time consuming tasks. Using
computer vision, we can do this in a
fraction of the time, making it possible
for growers to do this on a meaningful
scale. In addition, we will soon be able
to use computer vision tools to detect
pests and diseases, replacing some of the
tedious scouting and trapping work that is
currently done to monitor and make pest
management decisions.
FGN: Tell me a bit about that
drone-mounted platform that was
demonstrated by Bruno Basso's laboratory
at MSU. What applications are they
researching? Are you involved, and if
so, how?
AW: Bruno Basso's lab investigates
a broad range of topics including
biophysics, climatology, hydrology,
genetics, agronomy and soil science
to understand the overall agricultural
systems and improve decision-making,
with the goal of making agriculture
more sustainable. The drone his
technicians, Richard Price and Ruben
Ulrich, demonstrated is used to
capture aerial imagery that can be
used to develop models of agricultural
systems. Historically they have worked
primarily in agricultural crops, but in
the past few years they have started
working in orchard and vineyard
systems as well. The imagery and
models can be used to detect many
kinds of variation within the orchard
landscape - canopy, crop, moisture
status, nutrient deficiencies, pests,
among other stressors. The data is used
to develop tools and recommendations
to assist with management decisions
and lays the foundation for the many
private companies that are developing
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September 2021

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