Study Looks at UAV use to Dry Cherries

Researchers at Washington State University are working on a system that will tell cherry growers whether or not their cherries are in danger of splitting after a rain event.

Dr. Jianfeng Zhou said they want to mounted sensors in the orchard so that they could see how much rainwater falls, wind speed and more.

“With all the inputs, and high moisture levels, we want to see if this will affect cherry cracking. That is the basic goal.”

The system would be able to tell cherry growers when they need to use drying techniques and the study included which techniques are the most effective determining that drone helicopters in the right conditions can be extraordinarily effective.

Zhou said these systems would allow real-time updates to growers and could be expanded to cell phones, tablets, computers and more.

“It can give an alarm, so if it rains at a certain level and it is a certain weather condition, it would tell growers to take steps to remove water.”

The study used simulated rain systems to make sure they were able to control the amount of water on the fruit.

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