Evaluating the Quality of Kiwifruit Pollinated with an Autonomous Robot

The growing popularity of kiwifruit orchards in New Zealand is increasing the already high demand for traditional pollinators (bees), with alternatives currently too costly for most growers due to high labour requirements or inefficient usage of expensive pollen. A novel pollinating robot has been previously described to provide a more efficient, reliable and cost-effective means of addressing this problem. However, the pollinator suffered from a low fruit-set rate of 40% overall, well below commercial requirements of 80% to 90%. This paper presents two new developments for that system: a new, off the shelf spray nozzle (SS1504) to increase the overall pollen delivery and an automated height controller to keep the spray manifolds at a consistent distance below the canopy while avoiding obstacles. Furthermore, we have designed and conducted a more controlled, real-world evaluation of the pollination system to compare both nozzle variants and measure the commercial viability of the pollination platform. Final results show that, operating from a mobile platform at 2.5 km h −1 , the new nozzle could consistently achieve a fruit-set rate only 16 ± 2% below the control samples in each test orchard (82 ± 2% and 72 ± 4% absolute). Pollen consumption remains high, however, with estimates of up to 4.6 kg ha−1 , thus preventing the system from being economically viable. While cost-effectiveness awaits substantial efficiency improvements, our work has demonstrated an automated pollinator that can produce commercial-grade kiwifruit.