Can technology reduce fruit waste and improve fruit quality for the consumers?

Every spring, when I was growing up in northern Greece, I would look out over valleys of pink—flowers blooming on the area’s abundant peach trees. In my family’s orchard, I was always focused on making things easier; I wanted to ensure a sustainable industry by providing the highest-quality fruit to consumers. A few decades later, I am still working to improve the peach industry, just from the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. 

As an associate professor of pomology—the science of growing fruit—at Colorado State University, I have spent the past six years developing a nondestructive sensor that can help farmers make smarter orchard management and harvesting decisions. The goal is to cultivate the best products that will elicit premium prices and satisfy consumers. 

Colorado yields the sixth-most peaches in the United States, with more than 2,000 acres of peach orchards producing 30 million pounds annually. Peaches also comprise about three-quarters of the state’s total fruit production, netting approximately $50 million in sales. 

While they may not adorn the state’s license plates like they do in Georgia or the 10 times larger industry in California, Colorado is well known for its tasty peaches, which are grown primarily in the southwestern agricultural town of Palisade. A combination of intense sunlight from the high elevation, alkaline soils, the Colorado River, reliable winds and the juxtaposition of hot days and cold nights nurture a sweeter, juicier fruit. The farm gate price for Colorado peaches regularly reaches $1 more per kilogram than the national average.

My goal was always to maintain the industry’s reputation for superior flavor by maximizing quality while minimizing crop loss. With a single scan of our precisely calibrated device, growers can compile vital data that informs when the peaches are harvested, stored and shipped.

Quality analysis of peaches traditionally requires cutting into the product—and growers’ and sellers’ bottom lines—to measure fruits’ sugar content, color and maturity. In contrast, our handheld sensor requires someone to simply hold it up to the surface of a peach for a few seconds. It uses a broad spectrum of light, from visible to near-infrared, to gather multiple metrics on details such as: dry matter (a measure of how many carbohydrates are in the fruit, which correlates to its sweetness potential at harvest); chlorophyll index (which indicates maturity and picking time); °Brix (which indicates the current sweetness level); and possible internal disorders. 

Growers don’t have to assess every tree. Around 40 scans are enough for our team to generate detailed reports on an entire orchard. The data can help farmers accurately predict optimal harvest dates—helpful when managing labor, which is a particular challenge these days—and packers determine how long to store and when to ship the peaches. Without destroying the fruit, XLSOR (it stands for “excellent sensor”) can evaluate if they have grown mealy or are too young to be enjoyed. The data can also be zoomed out to determine where in a tree canopy the sweetest fruit grows and if trees need to be thinned to ensure the remaining fruit is receiving appropriate nutrients and sunlight. 

XLSOR provides valuable information across the whole supply chain. XLSOR technology can make a difference for the growers helping them make better decisions in the orchard and for the retailers helping them fine-tune their end for efficient and effective marketing promotions on locally grown fresh produce. Trough a subscription-based service growers and retailers can gain access to original data aquired through borrowed sensors. This current spring and summer, XLSOR team is running a pilot with growers in Colorado. We expect the sensor to become commercially available within the next year. In the future, small tweaks to how it’s calibrated could make XLSOR applicable to other produce, such as apples, kiwifruit, cherries and grapes. XLSOR technology can revolutionize the whole industry.