ABSTRACT
Europe leads the world in orchard mechanization, with commercially available products such as orchard platforms and mechanical pruning and thinning machines already in use by tree fruit growers. The US tree fruit industry, which was slower than Europe in moving towards simple, narrow, accessible and productive (SNAP) fruiting wall architectures (a type of training system that creates very narrow two-dimensional canopies in which the majority of branches and fruits are visible to machines), is now actively seeking mechanization solutions to meet labour and other regulatory and fresh market consumerdriven challenges. For example, fruiting wall architectures could provide a machineaccessible orchard system where a mechanical or robotic solution for fresh market apple harvesting that is capable of picking more than 95% of the fruit with less than 5% of harvest-induced cullage could be possible. Furthermore, our discussions with a number of growers and researchers around the world have indicated that a target harvest speed of about 60 apples per minute resulting in a labour reduction of more than 80% would be essential to be economically competitive with current harvest solutions.
