Apple orchards have to dodge a wide range of pests and diseases in order to obtain a viable harvest. The 2021 North American apple season has two major concerns on growers’ radars: fire blight, and codling moths. Apples are susceptible to each throughout the season, but particularly during the bloom stage. Research continues on how to best prevent, scout, and treat disease and pests – and best practice strategies are helping growers execute on successful seasons against the odds.

After a busy 2020 with the initial rollout of Harvest Quality Vision (HQV), Croptracker’s post-harvest computer vision solution, the team is pleased to announce the launch of a further streamlined update. Functioning as a “virtual pre-sorter” for any point along the supply chain, HQV 2.0 captures hundreds of data points for each piece of detected fruit in five seconds, all with just an iPad.

Harvesting season is no small feat of time-sensitive orchestration, with end goals of maximizing produce quality for consumers as well as growers’ return on investment. Bin tagging is an invaluable piece of the puzzle for maintaining harvest continuity and traceability, but between regional variations, different commodities, and operational preferences, there’s more than one practical approach to getting the job done. This is why flexibility is a cornerstone of Croptracker’s entire ERP suite – and the Harvest module’s workflow versatility is only expanding with greater bin tagging options, like pre-printing.

The rich history of apple cultivation has led to over 7,500 different varieties in existence. Commercial production pressures limit the scope of what types can be effectively produced for large markets: size conformity, taste profile, storage life, and so on. But rarer, stand-out cultivars are still maintained and celebrated for their unique delight, history, revival from near-extinction, or the possibility of becoming the Next Big Apple.