Reiter/Driscoll's is incredibly progressive and tech savvy as a grower. Their research operation is truly first class. They are the only grower we've worked with that has writen their own API client without any assistance--pretty slick for a decades old company whose main expertise is in trucking, labor, land, and plants.
How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
11–20 of 38 posts
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#12Driscoll strawberries are disgusting when compared to a more natural and naturally grown strawberry.
All that confirmation bias in such a short comment.
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#13Does anyone know how strawberries are harvested? I've been toying with the idea of a produce harvesting robotics startup. But I guess the first step is to talk to some farmers?
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#14I'd like natural strawberries, thank you very much!!! Edit: The downvoters are free to be subjects for future genetic engineering projects themselves.
All of the down voters are already subjects of genetic engineering projects. Two specimens were brought together. Their dna was shared and 23 chromosomes were combined from each of the specimens to create a new experimental offspring.
I imagine that many of the down voters also are creating future genetic engineering projects in much the same way. Attempting to, and occasionally succeeding in, combining their dna with another specimen to create offspring.
If only we had more natural human creation as opposed to this GMO human combination that seems to be popping up in the marketplace...
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#15Reiter/Driscoll's is incredibly progressive and tech savvy as a grower. Their research operation is truly first class. They are the only grower we've worked with that has writen their own API client without any assistance--pretty slick for a decades old company whose main expertise is in trucking, labor, land, and plants.
Your comment made me start reading about your company. Really cool stuff! Do you use drones or regular aircraft?
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#16Does anyone know how strawberries are harvested? I've been toying with the idea of a produce harvesting robotics startup. But I guess the first step is to talk to some farmers?
Humans are currently too inexpensive to make a harvesting robot worth the cost (sadly enough).
Let's say you spend $10M on R&D (a very low number in my opinion), each robot costs $50k to build, and maintenance/repairs cost $5k/year. You decide to charge your first customer $100k because you have to cover some of your R&D, and you pass all the maintenance costs on to them.
For that $105k per year, a farmer could hire ~8 people for an entire year. But most growers only need labor for a few months at the most. So, assuming a crop that requires people for about 3 months, you're actually looking at 32 humans vs. a single robot.
If the economics made sense, people would use harvesting robots. But at this point, picking fruit is something humans are particularly good at and computers are particularly bad at, and humans are still very inexpensive.
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#17I know this has been discussed before, but whoever is responsible for Bloomberg's new design deserves to die in fire.
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#18Does anyone know how strawberries are harvested? I've been toying with the idea of a produce harvesting robotics startup. But I guess the first step is to talk to some farmers?
I realize that planting isn't the same thing as harvesting, but I once had an acquaintance who was a salesperson for an Australian startup that made automated planting machines. Imagine a robot about the size of a small refrigerator that creeps along the field on bulldozer treads, digging holes and dispensing seeds as it goes.
To try and sell these things, my acquaintance would go out in the field and work alongside the farmers for weeks at a time to try and demonstrate the robot's value. Invariably something would break, and the engineers back at the main office would quickly turn around a design fix.
Although the farmers were usually patient and supportive, rarely did they end up buying. The company went out of business several years ago. I don't mention this anecdote to discourage you from your idea; just to suggest that the problem may end up being a lot more difficult than it may seem.
Re: How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future
#19Does anyone know how strawberries are harvested? I've been toying with the idea of a produce harvesting robotics startup. But I guess the first step is to talk to some farmers?
Humans are currently too inexpensive to make a harvesting robot worth the cost (sadly enough). Let's say you spend $10M on R&D (a very low number in my opinion), each robot costs $50k to build, and maintenance/repairs cost $5k/year. You decide to charge your first customer $100k because you have to cover some of your R&D, and you pass all the maintenance costs on to them. For that $105k per year, a farmer could hire…
More variables: picking only ripe fruit; handling the fruit more carefully; picking more rapidly so you can share the robot with many growers; refrigerating the fruit from the moment of picking. Any of these could make it worthwhile?