Researchers will explore using imaging technologies, paired with AI, to help farmers make money-saving decisions
North Carolina has about 250 apple farmers and 6,000 acres producing roughly 4 million bushels of apples a year, making North Carolina the No. 7 state in apple production. (photo by N.C. State University)
RALEIGH, N.C. — An interdisciplinary North Carolina State University team has kicked off new research exploring whether imaging technologies paired with artificial intelligence might prove useful for apple farmers.
Seed funding for the Improving Apple Orchard Management Decisions with Non-Destructive Technologies project comes from the North Carolina Plant Sciences Initiative.
The research team hopes that the one-year project will inform future research to help farmers increase worker efficiency, improve crop value and reduce food waste.
Tom Kon, based at the Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River, is the project leader. He is an NC State University associate professor of horticultural science and NC State Extension’s apple specialist for the southeastern United States.
Other NC State faculty members on the research team are Chenhan Xu, an assistant professor of computer science with radio-frequency signal processing expertise, and Edgar Lobaton, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and expert in artificial intelligence with experience in agricultural and biological imaging.
Jeff Chandler, research coordinator for the N.C. Soybean Producers Association, is also on the team.
Focusing on labor-intensive stages
The project focuses on improving three of the most labor-intensive aspects of apple production: pruning when trees are dormant, removing excess flowers and fruits as the trees grow, and fruit harvest.
The researchers believe that farmers could make better decisions at pruning, thinning and harvest stages if they had a way to estimate key characteristics of buds, fruitlets and mature fruits.
They plan to test portable, non-invasive radio frequency imaging, near-infrared and visible (NIR/Vis) spectroscopy to see if they can determine such characteristics as water and dry matter content at the different stages.
More long-term research could yield high return on investment
Kon said that the N.C. PSI’s one-time $25,000 investment in the project could ultimately have important economic implications for farmers.
Decisions about thinning alone, he said, can make a difference of $5,000 to $10,000 in crop value per acre per year. North Carolina has about 250 apple farmers and 6,000 acres producing roughly 4 million bushels of apples a year, making North Carolina the No. 7 state in apple production.
Beyond the apple industry, the researchers’ findings could benefit production of other specialty crops, Kon said.
Still, he cautioned that it’s too early to tell.
“I just want to see if this technology works on the crop of interest and on the structures of interest before we get too far down the line,” he said. “Because I think that there are too many instances where there’s an indication that a technology is ready to go but really it’s not quite ready for prime time.”
Project emerges from engagement of ag community and researchers
The apple project proposal was recently selected from five total research proposals submitted in December 2024. Feedback from the N.C. PSI’s Grower Advisory Council and others was instrumental in selecting the winning proposal.
The proposals resulted from N.C. PSI’s Connecting2Grow workshop in October, when 39 faculty members, researchers and Extension agents from 18 departments in six NC State colleges came together with several N.C. commodity group leaders and others in the agricultural community to chart new research directions for automation for labor efficiency in agriculture.
Automation and labor were among of the top priorities expressed by agricultural leaders who’d attended the N.C. PSI’s Charting a Future: Interdisciplinary Research Across N.C. Commodities workshop last year.
N.C. PSI Executive Director Adrian Percy noted that bringing together researchers from different areas of expertise to solve grand challenges in agriculture was the impetus for the N.C. PSI, and agricultural community needs have been, and always will be, central to the initiative’s research and development model.
“Events such as Connecting2Grow and the involvement of our N.C. PSI Grower Advisory Council have been critical to ensuring that we facilitate research and education that aligns with some of the agricultural industry’s highest priorities,” he said. “This is our third Connecting2Grow event, and we’re seen several impactful interdisciplinary research teams form as a result.”
Accelerating research connections
Kon said he’s excited about the potential for the collaboration with Xu, Lobaton and Chandler to advance his work.
“What’s neat for me from a plant physiology perspective is I also get to understand more about the characteristics of these plant organs that we’re evaluating and what’s important. Why does one fruit drop off as compared to another? Or what is the physical characteristic that makes a reproductive bud different than that of a vegetative bud?” he said.
“I think each of us on the team is going to be able to make some advances in our own disciplines, and then hopefully the sum of the parts is greater than anything we all would’ve expected otherwise,” Kon said. “I’m grateful that the N.C. PSI has accelerated these connections in a way that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.”
–Dee Shore, N.C. State University
