AI-con­trolled pro­duc­tion of soft fruits using new sensor systems

Obst- und Gemüse-Absatz­gen­os­senschaft Nord­baden eG and Obst­groß­markt Mit­tel­baden eG have com­mis­sioned Fraunhofer UMSICHT with the fur­ther devel­op­ment of a new cul­tiv­a­tion meth­od. The ​“inBerry” pro­ject, which has now been launched, focuses on a data-driv­en and year-round pro­duc­tion meth­od for indoor cul­tiv­a­tion that is made even more effi­cient by the integ­ra­tion of innov­at­ive sensors. In col­lab­or­a­tion with the tech­no­logy pro­vider vGreens Hold­ing GmbH, a new pro­duc­tion meth­od for the sus­tain­able ver­tic­al cul­tiv­a­tion of spe­cial crops such as straw­ber­ries, rasp­ber­ries and blue­ber­ries can be created.

Along­side apples, straw­ber­ries are one of the most pop­u­lar types of fruit in Ger­many. How­ever, the straw­berry har­vest in Ger­many in 2024 is expec­ted to be even smal­ler than in the already very poor har­vest year of 2023. Accord­ing to an ini­tial estim­ate by the Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ic­al Office (Des­tatis), farms expect a har­vest of around 70,000 tons of straw­ber­ries in the open field. This would be the low­est har­vest volume since 1995, 24% below the straw­berry har­vest in 2023^[1] . The reas­ons for this neg­at­ive trend are the con­tin­ued decline in the area under straw­berry cul­tiv­a­tion and crop fail­ures due to weath­er events. The con­sequences of severe weath­er events are par­tic­u­larly notice­able in the fruit and berry business.

Reduc­tion of envir­on­ment­al impact

Ensur­ing the sup­ply of fresh, high-qual­ity food while at the same time redu­cing the envir­on­ment­al impact also places a fur­ther bur­den on agri­cul­tur­al pro­du­cers. Stud­ies show that the focus in future should not be on fur­ther max­im­iz­ing yields, but rather on redu­cing the envir­on­ment­al impact while main­tain­ing the same yield. Uwe Schwit­tek from OGA Nord­baden eG, whose core busi­ness is the mar­ket­ing of fruit and veget­ables, agrees: ​“Our task is to con­tin­ue to meet mar­ket demand in the future and provide an appro­pri­ate range of goods. Against the back­drop of socio-polit­ic­al require­ments and the need for cli­mate-neut­ral pro­duc­tion, we are there­fore look­ing into new, for­ward-look­ing pro­duc­tion pro­cesses.” One of these meth­ods is indoor ver­tic­al farm­ing – a form of con­trolled envir­on­ment agri­cul­ture that offers a resource-effi­cient, space-sav­ing and region­al cul­tiv­a­tion meth­od dir­ectly where it is needed.

Increase the effi­ciency of indoor cultivation

Until now, indoor ver­tic­al farm­ing has mainly been used to grow salads and herbs. The pro­duc­tion spec­trum is now to be expan­ded as part of ​“inBerry”. ​“In cooper­a­tion with vGreens Hold­ing GmbH, which spe­cial­izes in the data-based and AI-con­trolled pro­duc­tion of straw­ber­ries, we are work­ing on a pro­duc­tion meth­od for ber­ries that is raised to a high­er level by using optic­al sensor tech­no­lo­gies for qual­ity determ­in­a­tion,” explains Volk­mar Keu­ter from Fraunhofer UMSICHT. ​“In the Indoor Farm­ing work­ing group, we are devel­op­ing data-sup­por­ted tech­no­lo­gies to increase the effi­ciency of indoor cul­tiv­a­tion,” adds his col­league Dr. Felix Thoma. The pro­ject is set to run for sev­er­al years and, in addi­tion to data-driv­en straw­berry cul­tiv­a­tion, includes the devel­op­ment of new indoor cul­tiv­a­tion sys­tems for oth­er fruits.

^{[1] Straw­berry har­vest in 2024 expec­ted to be 24% lower than in the pre­vi­ous year — Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ic­al Office (des​tatis​.de)}