Greenhouse tomato pollinator robot

Added on 23 July 2020

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ISRAEL- Arugga Al Farming, an Israel-based greenhouse technology company, has been developing a robotic pollinator module that is designed to replace the dwindling labor forces in countries where pollination is done manually. It also will replace the work of bumblebees, the world's most widely used pollination solution. Now, the company is set to work with growers in Australia, Belgium, and Canada to evaluate the pollinator robot for use in greenhouse tomato operations, with the goal of launching the first commercial robotic pollination solution by the end of 2020.

In an article on ABC Rural News in Australia, Arugga Al Farming Chief Executive Iddo Geltner said after successful trials in Israel, the company had targeted Australia because it did not have bumblebees.

"Around the world, pollination in greenhouses is typically performed using commercially produced bumblebee hives; but these bees don't pollinate well in certain conditions, and they're actually banned in Australia," Geltner said. "So, we designed a robot that pollinates greenhouse tomatoes by autonomously driving along the rows, finding flowers that are ready for pollination using artificial intelligence, and sending air pulses to vibrate the flowers in a very specific manner to imitate buzz pollination as performed by bumblebees."