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Agriculture This Week: Shouldn't need month to know ag important

Regular readers may recognize that I hold limited faith in a day, week, or month being designated to mark a particular thing having much impact these days. 

Perhaps having a National Brussel Sprouts Week bumps sales a bit for a few days, but people soon realize the mini cabbages aren’t that good unless drenched in gooey cheese, and go back to buying their usual mealtime fare.  

So, when the province annually designates October as Agriculture Month I’m unsure if it has a great impact. 

That said, on this one I am also conflicted. 

Having grown up on the farm, and have written about it for the past 30-plus years I recognize its critical importance, and the fading awareness from more and more people about what the industry does. 

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Designing a Robotic Berry Picker

Video: Designing a Robotic Berry Picker


Since blackberries must be harvested by hand, the process is time-consuming and labor-intensive. To support a growing blackberry industry in Arkansas, food science associate professor Renee Threlfall is collaborating with mechanical engineering assistant professor Anthony Gunderman to develop a mechanical harvesting system. Most recently, the team designed a device to measure the force needed to pick a blackberry without damaging it. The data from this device will help inform the next stage of development and move the team closer to the goal of a fully autonomous robotic berry picker. The device was developed by Gunderman, with Yue Chen, a former U of A professor now at Georgia Tech, and Jeremy Collins, then a U of A undergraduate engineering student. To determine the force needed to pick blackberries without damage, the engineers worked with Threlfall and Andrea Myers, then a graduate student.