Controlled Environments: The Technology in Protected Cropping

You might not know it, but snack tomatoes have been making their way through vision grading machines for many years. The machinery and technology are ideal for these pint-sized tomatoes which are usually graded and sorted before making their way into punnets for supermarkets and into our homes.

We’re accustomed to berries being graded this way. With tomatoes forming part of the botanical berry family, it’s a natural progression for tomato growers to use technology that has been tried and tested to improve productivity and yield.

Ideal growing conditions are not always possible and when demand needs to be balanced with sustainability fresh thinking is required. From large-scale glasshouses full of tomatoes to plastic sheet tunnels saving tomatoes from weather damage, protected cropping is playing a large part in ensuring growers can continue to supply nutritious, delicious and accessible food now and into the future.

What is Protected Cropping ?

According to the peak industry body in Australia, Protected Cropping Australia (PCA), protected cropping is an overarching term that refers to crops grown under some form of protection, cover, shade cloth, greenhouse or glasshouse. The protection helps the grower to control elements such as reducing weather damage, and loss due to pests or even regulate environmental factors such as humidity.
Described as one of the fastest-growing food-producing sectors in Australia, Protected Cropping Australia has laid out a plan for how this growth will continue over the next 7-10 years and other industry professionals have suggested it’s an “inevitable outcome for many Australian farmers.”

Low-Tech Protected Cropping

Low-tech covers such as polytunnels and bird-netting has been used for many years and provides an element of protection from the weather. Polytunnels help to protect from fruit from undesirable weather but have open ends meaning that the grower doesn’t have complete control of the environment under the tunnel. Netting significantly reduces the damage caused by birds and other animals and can help to reduce the impact of a heavy rain season when, for example, hail can damage ripe fruit.

Medium-Tech Protected Cropping

Medium tech-protected cropping allows the grower more control of the growing conditions. This could include using enclosed polyhouses that have sides that can be opened and closed, or shade cloth that can be drawn open and closed. Oftentimes, light, airflow and humidity are controlled manually to optimise the growing environment.

High-Tech Protected Cropping

High-tech protected cropping gives growers far more control over the growing conditions. Crops are grown in purpose-designed glasshouses that are up to 8.5 metres tall. Inside the glasshouses, there is significant automation of vents, fans, heaters and shade to optimise the growing conditions. They may utilise automated hydroponic systems controlled by computers. Sowing, crop management and picking may be partially or fully automated.

High-tech Tomatoes

The fruits and vegetables best adapted to controlled growing environments include:

• Those that grow on vines or bushes (tomato, strawberry, raspberry, blueberry, cucumber, capsicum, grape, kiwi fruit)
• High-value specialist crops (hops, vanilla, saffron, coffee)
• Medicinal and cosmetic crops (seaweed, echinacea); and
• Small trees (cherries, chocolate, mango, almonds) (O’Sullivan et al, 2020)

Hydroponically grown tomatoes are not a new thing, and there’s good reason why. Greenhouse cultivation offers higher yields, reduces the risks of pests and disease, allows them to be grown throughout the year and improves their flavour and quality.

The final step in ensuring the most superior product makes it to the shelves is accurate and efficient grading and sorting. GP Graders has established relationships with a number of significant tomato-growing businesses to ensure our grading and sorting technology is perfectly aligned with their operations and goals. gpVision™ is grading snack tomatoes 6 days a week in some packing sheds, in some cases processing over 4,000kg per hour.

Along with the ground-breaking MultiView Camera System, gpVision™ is now also making use of some remarkable AI/Machine Learning technologies to detect fresh splits on snack tomatoes. Ever-challenging fresh splits, which historically have been hard to catch, are now hitting the waste bin automatically. gpVision™ essentially eliminates human sorting and the costs that go with it.

Want more of your produce to make it to market? Get in touch to discuss how our grading solutions can support your big plans! Let’s talk.