Timing is critical in the farming industry, and harvest is no exception. In the apple industry, where product may be held in controlled atmosphere (CA) storage for long periods of time, determining the ideal harvest window is even more essential to guaranteed longterm quality.

A seasoned and experienced orchard manager once said the following about the apple harvest:

We can’t put them back on the tree once they’ve been picked."

In the ongoing effort to improve food safety and traceability, technologies are constantly evolving to bring more accurate information to retailers and consumers about where their food comes from. The Produce Traceability Initiative, sponsored by the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, aims to bring accurate, electronic traceability to every step of the food supply chain. From brand specific universal product codes in grocery stores, to blockchain tracking an individual head of lettuce, it all starts with the case and pallet tags growers provide.

The quality of your fruit is the most important factor in getting paid. The right size and quality to the right buyer will get you the best price for your hard work.

Croptracker’s Harvest Quality Vision (HQV) has been successfully scanning apples, oranges, peaches, nectarines and other similarly shaped orchard fruit to gather size and color data since its launch 4 years ago. We are now proud to announce HQV can scan pears and irregularly shaped fruit with the same high level of accuracy!

The growing season is nearly upon us, Croptracker can help you every step of the way.

An artificial intelligence approach to the apple industry’s most common quality test

Croptracker is proud to announce the launch of Starch Quality Vision; the latest artificial intelligence assessment tool for apple growers. Starch Quality Vision (SQV) technology empowers orchard managers and apple growers to empirically and accurately score starch pattern index (SPI) tests without the need for a trained assessor.

One of the biggest issues plaguing the food industry today is food fraud, defined by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency as the “the misrepresentation or adulteration of a product for economic gain”. Food fraud exists across a huge variety of food markets, from fresh produce to processed food items, condiments, fish, and even spices.

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.

It’s a new year, and while harvest time has wrapped up here in North America it is still underway in the southern hemisphere. Every year we get feedback from hundreds of growers worldwide about their need for harvest traceability, but who are also desperate to simplify their data collection process during the busiest time of year.

Harvest Quality Vision is here, and it is revolutionizing harvest and quality control for apple growers around the world.

Harvest Quality Vision has been revolutionizing harvest and in-orchard quality control for apple growers around the world, and we are thrilled to announce its expansion into new products! Introducing the latest update: harvest and quality control for pears!

Food safety is a growing concern among consumers and producers alike. In 2016, there were 764 food recalls in the U.S. and Canada—a startling 22% increase from the previous year. Putting it into further perspective, consider that 52% of recalls cost over $10M and 23% cost over $30M.

Hard cider is a phenomenon in the alcoholic beverage industry, with US consumption growing more than 850% in the last 5 years.  A new study examines orchard management strategies that can help growers improve the quality of the cider they produce from culinary apples.

Curious about Croptracker's exciting new innovation on display at the Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Convention this year?  Read on to learn more about Harvest Quality Vision™ (HQV), developed with the aim to revolutionize fruit and vegetable harvests.

The Produce Traceability Initiative (PTI), sponsored by the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, GS1 US, The Produce Marketing Association (PM), and United Fresh, aims to bring accurate, electronic traceability to every step of the food supply chain. Last week they announced new standards for traceability and labelling in the US and Canada in advance of the 2020 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) draft to be released this September.

Crop quality is one of the most important factors to ensure that your crops make it to buyers and you get properly paid. Growing fruits and vegetables is tough, between extreme weather events such as hail, to the constant battle against pests, there are an endless number of problems that can affect the quality of your crop before you harvest or sell it.

Brix degree measuring is an important quality metric for specialty crop growers and horticulture. Brix° levels inform both harvest planning, storage, packing and sales decision making. The accuracy and utility of field Brix readings depend significantly on managing both environmental inputs and sampling consistency. As a result, ensuring the testing tools work well and sampling processes and reporting are standardized is vital for making properly informed decisions. In this article we detail the factors influencing Brix test results, explain refractometer model options and have compared several popular Brix refractometers popular with fresh produce growers and packers.