Artificial Intelligence and mechanization in

Horticulture
00

Deepak Singh Raushan Kumar

Ph.D Horti. (Fruit Science) M.Sc Horti. (Fruit Science)
En.Roll. 210133001 En.Roll. 210143008

Department of Horticulture
College of Agriculture, JNKVV, Jabalpur 482 004
 Content
01

Introduction
History
Need
Manually Operated Machine

Power Operated Machine

AI Based Technologies
Advantage of AI
Limitations of AI
Conclusion
 Introduction
02

Mechanization & Artificial Intelligence in Horticulture :

• Need of Modern Horticulture
• It is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging
from simple and basic hand tools to more
sophisticated, motorized equipment and machinery,
to perform various operations in Fruit production.
• AI in horticulture is a human less decision making
system that can process, understand and take the
necessary action according to the crop condition. Its
applications in the horticulture industry are diverse.
03
 History
04

• The first plough for planting seeds, emerged over 5000 years BC.
• Wooden Animal drawn ploughs were introduced around 1500 BC.
• In 1889, Watts and Kaisar introduced ploughs, corn grinders and chaff cutters at
Cawnpore (now Kanpur) Experimental Farm in Uttar Pradesh.
• SardarJoginder Singh (1897-1946), Agriculture Minister in Punjab introduced the
steam tractors in India in 1914 for the reclamation of wasteland and eradication of
‘Kans’.

Image source: Report on the progress of agriculture

in India for 1918-19, Government of India, Plate -I.

Fordson Tractor with disc harrows

 History
05

• Artificial Intelligence was invented by Herbert Simon

(1965) and the word Artificial Intelligence was coined
by John McCarthy.
• Application of AI in agriculture was first attempted
by McKinion and Lemmon in 1985 to Develop Crop
Simulation Model
• AI is the intelligence exhibited by machines, rather
than human or other animals. The intelligent agents
which perceives it’s environment and takes action to
maximize the success (Russel et al., 2003).
Herbert Simon: Father of AI
• The latest technologies of automated systems using agricultural robots and drones
have made a tremendous contribution in the agro-based sector. Various hi-tech
computer based systems are designed to determine various important parameters
like weed detection, yield detection, crop quality and many other techniques (Liakos
et al., 2018).
 History
06

 There are 7 phases of AI Development :

• First Phases (1952-56) : Birth of Artificial Intelligence

• Second Phases (1956-74) : For algebra word, Theorems, English speaking
• Third Phase (1974- 80) : First AI Winter
• Fourth phases (1980-87) : Focus on mainstream AI research
• Fifth Phase (1987-93) : Second AI winter
Herbert Simon: Father of AI
• Sixth Phase (1993-2011) : Successfully being used in the technology industry
• The latest technologies of automated systems using agricultural robots and drones
• have made
Seventh phasea (2011-
tremendous contribution
present) in thelearning,
: Used for Deep agro-based sector.ofVarious
processing big Data,hi-tech
computer based systems are designed to determine various important parameters
like weed detection, yield detection, crop quality
General and many other techniques (Liakos
intelligence
et al., 2018).
 Need
07

• Increase in area and production of horticulture

• Labour costs are increasing
• Availability of skilled labour is reducing
• To meet the food safety characteristics
• Reduce crop losses by harvesting at proper time
Sharma et al. 2022
• Reduce labour cost and time
• To improve the overall harvest quality and accuracy
• Monitoring of Field
• To early disease detection
• For application of nutrition and fertigation
• For evaluating soil condition
• Reducing the cost of cultivation
• Increasing competition in the national and international markets.
Steep Rise in Agricultural Wages since 2006-07 and its Effect
08

*CAGR : Compound annual growth rate

Source: Bureau of Labour and Employment, Indiastat, KPMG Analysis

Horticulture production share in India Financial Year 2021, by state
09

Odisha 4.00%
Tamil Nadu 6.00%
Karnataka 6.00%
Bihar 7.12%
Gujrat 7.28%
Andhra Pradesh 8.03%
Maharashtra 8.67%
Madhya Pradesh 10.42%
West Bengal 10.78%
Utter Pradesh 13.00%
Others 21.00%
States
0.00%
Source : Statista 2022
State-wise Average Daily Wage Rates in Rural India (Men - General
Agricultural Labourers)
10
Unit : (₹)

State/Union 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21

Territory
Uttar Pradesh 191.9 199.6 211.8 229.8 247.1 258.8 274.5
West Bengal 216.0 220.2 237.6 255.9 263.1 267.5 288.6
Madhya Pradesh 150.5 160.4 173.1 191.3 196.3 198.6 217.6
Maharashtra 196.7 195.9 196.8 207.4 213.7 231.8 267.7
Andhra Pradesh 216.9 213.3 249.1 269.5 282.0 302.6 318.6
Gujarat 160.0 177.6 184.0 187.9 199.3 208.6 213.1
Bihar 198.9 207.1 212.7 223.0 240.3 258.4 272.6
Karnataka 205.1 228.3 251.9 267.3 288.7 292.0 312.5
Tamil Nadu 334.3 357.0 378.7 385.9 398.7 410.4 434.2
Odisha 180.0 191.3 208.7 222.6 227.4 232.5 255.6
Source: Indian Labour Journal, Labour Bureau, Government of India, Nov 2021
Mechanization is required for various Horticultural practices
11

1. Field Preparation : i. Ploughing

ii. Land levelling
iii. Ridge–Furrow making
iv. Pol installation
v. Mulching
Vi. Irrigation trenches
2. Planting : i. Pit digging
3. Plant Nourishment : i. Fertilizer Application
ii. Irrigation - Drip & Sprinkler & Water pumps
iii. Fertigation
4. Training & Pruning
5. Harvesting : Fruit picking
Types of Machines
12

Mannually A machine is a thing that is created

Operated by people to make work easier

Machine
Man
Driven
Power
Operated

AI Driven
 A. Manually operated
13

Grub Hoe Rake Showel Pruning Saw Looping Shear

Pruning Shear
Budding-Grafting Knife Pruning Sword Wheel Barrow

Hedge Shear Fruit Picker

 A. Manually operated
14

Knapsack Sprayer

Foot Sprayer Tree pruner

Hand Rotary Duster

B. Power Operated
15

Man Driven
Diesel engine based
Price : 1,50,000 to
1.1 : Tractor : (Force Orchard Mini) 5,00,000 Rs
• Specialized for vineyards, fruit & nut orchards
• Help farmers seat comfortably
• Pick high hanging fruits at the same time
• Allow easy passage between tree rows
• Mini space require
Tractor Mounted
• Power lies between 11-36 HP
Price : 15,000 to
1,00,000
1.2 : Land Leveller :
• It improves crop establishment, crop stand
• Improve water coverage and water loss. 
• It can reduce the operation time by 10 to 15 per cent. 
• Can reduce weeds by up to 40 per cent by levelling. 
• It should be tractor mouted with 30-60 HP.
 B. Power Operated
16

Man Driven

1.3 : Earth Auger/ Digger :

• Earth Auger is used in agriculture purpose for digging holes
in the soil.
• It makes holes for plantation or for erecting poles.
• It is much easier to dig the soil with this machine and the
process takes less time.
Petrol engine based
• Tractor mounted will required 35-40 HP. Price : 8,000 to 35,000 RS

Time
Digging Method Efficiency
Requirement
Manual labour (100 X 100 X 100 cm) 2-4 pits 1day
Tractor operated post hole digger - gear
250-300 1 Hour
drive
Tractor operated Post hole digger -
300-400 1Hour
hydraulic drive
Tractor mounted
Price : 2,00,000 to
Lal et al., 2021 3,00,000
B. Power Operated
17
Man Driven Tractor mounted
Price 50,000 to 1,00,000
1.4 : Mulch Laying Machine : Capacity : 0.24 ha h-1
• Purpose of the machine is to lay the mulching paper on the beds
• Also punching the holes.
• It can help to reduce the capital cost and time of laying
• All operation in one pass of the machine.
• Controlling weed, moistening of soil, increasing of soil nutrients,
reduction of insect's pests and high crop yield
• Tractor Power required 35-55 HP .
1.5 : Compact Spreader Diesel engine based
• Specialized for vineyards, fruit & nut orchards Price : 5,00,000 to
7,00,000 Rs
• Help farmers seat comfortably
• Pick high hanging fruits at the same time
• Allow easy passage between tree rows
• Mini space require
• Power required 25 HP.
Conventional Method Cost
Parameter Fertilizer Spreader Cost
(Through Labour)
Cost per acre 600 – 700/- 100 – 150/-
Lal et al., 2021
Time per acre 2 hour 1 hour
No. of labours 04 01
B. Power Operated
18

Tractor Mounted
1.6 : Tractor Trailed Sprayer Price : 50,000 to
2,50,000
• Suitable for High Density Planting
• Liquid Fertilizer Application
• Used for water projection, crop performance materials,
weed killer, pest maintenance chemicals,
• Moreover, a tractor mounted sprayer machine applies
pesticides, fertilisers, herbicides on farm crops.
• Sprayer speed 3.0 km/h
• booms width of 7-11.0 m
• Mouted tractor power require 3-5 HP.
Tractor Mounted
Price : 4.62 lacs to 8 lacs
1.7 : Orchard Prunner
• Used for orchards like Lemon, Oranges, mandrains,
and vine yard
• Used for high density Mangoes where height of tree
is approximately 4-5 ft.
• For trimming of excessive branches
• Requires 80-90 HP Tractors for operation.
 B. Power Operated
19

1.8 : Flower (Blossom) and Fruit

Thinner :
• Controlled thinning that you see
directly after execution
• Thins without chemical use
• Increase in fruit size and quality
by increasing early sugar
allocation to limited number of
fruit
• Reduces biennial tendencies
• Fast travel speed ensures high
treated area per hour
• Thinning can be performed in all
weather conditions
• Can be used for all current
cultivars
• 20-30 HP tractor are required
 B. Power Operated
20

 Time (h ha−1) required to perform the mechanical thinning, and the hand thinning follow-
up, as compared with the only manual thinning
Parameters Unit Apricot Peach
Flowers Fruits Flowers Fruits
CASE STUDY

Mechanical
Thinning h ha−1 0.51 0.76 0.51 0.44

Hand Thinning
follow up h ha−1 22.2 37.3 87 120

Control (Only
manual thinning) h ha−1 45.4 72 152 125

Labour Saving by
using Machines % 51.1 48.2 42.8 40

Assirelli et al., 2018

Engineering and Transformation Research Centre
Monterotondo, Italy
 Mechanical Fruit Harvester :
21

Limb Shaker :
• The shaker was powered by a 2-stroke (spark ignition)
engine.
• crank mechanism to transmit power to a limb through a
boom and C-shaped clamp
• Shakers can be controlled remotely from the operators
handle on the shaker
• using limb shaker citrus fruits, apricots, peaches and
cherries can be harvested.
Mechanical Fruit Harvester :
22
Mechanical Fruit Harvester :
23

Trunk Shaker :
 Fruit tree shaker is special equipment for quick shaking of ripe fruits from
trees.
 The tree shaker facilitates the process of harvesting from any trees, saves
your energy, significantly reduces time to perform this difficult work and
also prevents trees from broken branches.
 Fruits mainly deciduous fruits, olives, nuts, and citrus are used to remove
by trunk shaker.
 Mostly a tractor-mounted trunk shaker
 Overall, the tractor mounted shaker was more effective
 With 72% detachment accuracy
 Applied Engineering in Agriculture, Vol. 29 issue 5
24
• Comparison of mean values of fruit detachment (%) at different levels of shaking
frequencies in Sweet cherry.

• Comparison of mean values of fruit detachment (%) at different levels of shaking

duration in Sweet Cherry.

Zhou et al., 2013

Summary of shaking and clamping based mechanical harvesting of various fruit crops 25

Crop Type of Shaker Method of Clamping Reference

Hydraulic trunk Shaker
Hydraulic limb shaker
Sweet / Tart
Cherry  Gas engine powered
handheld shaker
Oscillated air-flow shaker
Citrus Hydraulic vertical canopy
  shaker
Canopy shaker
Norton et al., 1962
Clamp the trunk
Peterson and Wolford,
Impact limb
2001
Hook limb Chen et al., 2012
Air blast canopy
Whitney and Patterson,
Clamp
1972 Sumner, 1973
secondary limb
Impact limb Savary et al., 2010

Impulse trunk shaker

Clamp trunk Pellerin et al., 1979
Apple/ Peach Spring activated impact
Clamp trunk Pellerin et al., 1982
Trunk shaker

Parameswarakumar and
Mango Mechanical limb shaker Clamp limb
Gupta, 1991

Hydraulic limb shaker

Clamp limb Erdoğan et al., 2003
Peach/Apricot Gas engine powered
Hook limb Torregrosa et al., 2008
handheld shaker

Pneumatic limb shaker Hook limb Sessiz and Özcan, 2006

Olive
Hydraulic trunk shaker Clamp trunk Blanco-Roldán et al., 2009
Pistachio nuts Hydraulic limb shaker Clamp limb Polat et al., 2007
Stone pine Hydraulic trunk shaker Clamp trunk and shake Castro-García et al., 2011
Artificial Intelligence
26

Progression Of Artificial Intelligence -

Artificial general Artificial super

Narrow AI
intelligence intelligence

Hossani et al., 2020

Artificial Intelligence
27

Various field Where AI can be used :

1. AI-Remote Sensing: Crop Health 9. Artificial Intelligence in Harvesting
Monitoring
2. AI - Driver less Tractor the Crops 
3. AI For Weeding 10. Chatbots
4. Automated Irrigation System 11. AI- Crop Simulation Models
5. Robots
6. Use of Weather Forecasting
7. Analyzing Crop Health by Drones
8. Precision Farming
Working Principle of Artificial Intelligence
28

AI Tractor
AI Based Machine
 AI- CROP SIMULATION MODELS :
29

 Artificial intelligence with Crop Simulation Models to Understand and Predict

Agricultural Systems Dynamics.

Applications of AI- Crop simulation modeling:

 Environmental characterization

 Optimizing crop management

 Pest and disease management

 Impact of climate change

 Yield Forecasting

 Models in Horticulture : Aloha Pineapple Model, SIMPINA Model,

CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
30
AI Based Weed Control
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
31
AI Based Weed Control
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
32
AI Based Weed Control

• The Robot having the sensors that are mounted with it

and their respective local frames.
1. Stereo Camera
The camera baseline is 12 cm.
It recorded synchro-nized left and right images
Resolution of image is 672 ×376 px.

2. Motors encoders
 Used three Hall effect sensors coupled with each
wheel to measure rotational angle increments.
 Assist with motion in right path
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
33
AI Based Weed Control

• 3. GPS
 It has two GPS module mounted with the robot
 One is for geographical location on the land
 Another one is for provide AI-based detected weed
population’s imagery position on the land

4. IMU
 It Stands for Inertial measurement Unit
 Its is a device which work on the principle of
Gyroscope
 Give the info about Orientation of the device or
machine
 Case Study
 Artificial Intelligence For Weed Detection - A Techno-efficient Approach
34
: Department of Computer Science, Federal University of Agriculture, Nigeria

Acuracy of
Machine Network System
Weeding

Image Capture 1. Convolution Neural Network (CNN) 95 %

2. Support Vector Machine (SVM) 95 %

Image Processing 3. Artificial Neural Network (ANN) and Scatter

92.5%
Transformation Technique (STT)
Reconvert the image to specification
4. K-Nearest Neighbourhood (KNN) classifier 96.4%

5. Fuzzy Real Time Classifier (FRTC) 91.9%

Background Colour Removal

Now the Data Has been

send to Device for
Execution of Weeding
Grey Transformation for
weed detection Detected images of
selected weeds from Johnson and Akerele, 2020
binary images
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
35
2) Crop and Soil Health Monitoring AI
Image Data Base of
soil and Leaf for
Image Processing to
differentiate Healthy,
Diseased, Nutrient
status, Moisture
Image aquisition Level

Image Segmentation
+
Feature Extraction
+
Classification
+
Diagnosis
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
36
2) Crop and Soil Health Monitoring AI

Spectroradio meter Line Quantum Canopy Analyser

CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
37
2) Crop and Soil Health Monitoring AI
 Case Study
 Mango Disease Detection by using Image Processing
38
: Department of Electronics and Telecommunication, Mumbai University

Disease Healthy Anthracnose Powdery Healthy Anthracnose

Image Factor leaf (Leaf) Mildew Fruit (Fruit)

Autocorrelation 24.0686 17.3715 16.0947 39.9239 16.2034

Contrast 0.2551 0.5068 0.2033 0.3645 0.2669
Correlation 0.9743 0.8764 0.9631 0.9540 0.9196
Cluser
Promenance 461.461 86.4571 185.303 802.258 96.3784

Cluser Shade 22.7937 13.2901 19.9951 92.5885 16.3252

Energy 0.3272 0.4911 0.3064 0.6684 0.5730

Entropy 1.22003 0.8621 1.2864 0.5658 0.7224

Variance 24.0454 17.4817 16.1352 39.9117 16.2204

Dissimilarity 0.06867 0.1689 0.0828 0.0729 0.09645

Veling et al., 2019

 39
 Identification of Citrus Greening using A VIS-NIR Spectroscopy Technique

: American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers

Case Study

Mishra et al., 2012

 Comparison of healthy leaf, Huanglongbing and Citrus Canker infected
leaves
40
Case Study

Shankaran & Ehsani, 2013

 CHATBOTS :
41

 Chatbots (sometimes referred to as a chatterbots) are

evolutions of Apps with the aim to provide fast solution
to simple, urgent problems and being much easier and
cheaper to develop.
 In the agricultural sector, chatbots are still very few but
have great potential to provide farmers with fast answers Chatbot virtual assistants
and recommendations on specific problems (e.g. plant or
animal disease identification and treatment).
 As a chatbot receives new words and dialogues, the
number of inquiries that it can reply to and the accuracy
of each response will increase. Farmer Bot

 Chatbot virtual assistants are increasingly used as they

allow to save time and gain in knowledge by providing Kishan Suvidha
answers on-the-fly. App

Chat GPT
 CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
42
AI Based Fruit Harvester

Advantages :
• Manual harvesting of fruits and vegetables is a
laborious, slow, and time-consuming task in
crop production so used of AI can benefit for
that.
• Managing the crops in a short period of time,
• Reduced labor involvement, higher quality, and
Tevel Aerobotics Technologies
better control over environmental effects.
CURRENT APPROACHES & ACHIEVEMENTS OF AI IN
HORTICULTURE:
43
AI Based Fruit Harvester

Tevel Aerobotics Technologies

 44
 Fruit recognition method for a harvesting robot with RGB-D cameras

(a) Pear b) Apple

Case Study

Figure: Fast recognition

and location of target fruit.

(a) Pear b) Apple

Result of sphere shaper estimation

Confirmation of
Harvestability
Fruit Sorting system
(a) Pear b) Apple
Yoshida et al., 2022
 45
 Fruit recognition method for a harvesting robot with RGB-D cameras

Methods Harvestable fruits

Harvestibility confirmation by skilled worker 137 Fruits

Harvestibility confirmation RGB-D camera

119 Fruits
Case Study

based robot

Accuracy percentage with RGB-D method 87 %

Peduncle length estimation

Measured Value Estimated Value Error
Case -1 (Pear) 0.913 m 0.919 m -0.006 m
Case -2 (Apple) 0.992 m 0.961 m 0.032 m

Yoshida et al., 2022

Future Prospects :
46

The future of AI in Horticulture will need a

major focus on universal access because
most cutting-edge technologies are only
used on large, well-connected orchards.
Increasing outreach and connectivity to even
small farms in remote areas across the
world will cement the future of machine
learning automated agricultural products
and data science in farming. To cope with
upcomming challenges, horticulture requires
a
continuous and sustainable increase in
productivity and efficiency on all levels only
possible with use of precision by
incorporating of new Techs
Advantages of Artificial Intelligence :
47

 Artificial intelligence, if coded properly, helps in reducing the error

 AI allow logical applications without emotions
 They are programmed for long hours and can continuously perform
 AI allows handling multi-dimensional and heterogeneous sources of data
and discovering.
 Specific trends and patterns that would not be apparent to humans.
 AI adapts through progressive learning algorithms to let the data do the
programming.
 AI can help predicting what a user will type, ask, search, and do. They can
act as assistants and recommend actions/solutions.
Limitation of Artificial Intelligence in Horticulture :
48

 Lack of familiarity with high tech machine learning solutions in farms across most
parts of the world
 Cost is a big challenge
 AI systems also need a lot of data to train machines and to make precise predictions
 Require a skilled person to operate this system
 Total dependency on AI
 It’s expensive
 Unemployment or Joblessness
 Hacking of data
 The AI can be programmed to do something devastating.
 Knowledge gap
 AI applications do not include emotions and moral values.
 Case Study 49
 Percentage of accumulated repair cost of farm machinery
Name of machine  Cost in percentage of purchase price for usable life\
(in Year)
1 3
2 4 5 6 7 8 9

Stationary engine 3.8 10.8 19.8 30.3 42 55.5 70.3 86.4 102.6
Electric motor 2 5.8 10.7 16.5 23 30.1 38.4 46.7 56.1
Power tiller 3.8 10.8 19.8 30.3 42 55.5 70.3 86.4 102.6
Tractor (wheeled and crawler)
3.2 9.0 16.5 25.3 35 46.2 58.6 72 85.5
Combine (self-propelled) 4.9 13 23 34.3 46.8 60.6 - - -
Combine (mounted and drawn)
6.6 17.3 30.4 44.8 61.9 80 100.3 - -
Seed drill
4 10.5 18.6 27 38.9 49 60.9 73.4 86.5
Seed-cum-fertilizer drill 5.5 14.4 25.4 38 52.5 67 83.2 100.3 -
Planter
6 14.8 29 36.4 48.7 61.6 75.4 88.7 104.4
Plough
6 14.8 29 36.4 48.7 61.6 75.4 88.7 104.4
Disc harrow
6 14.8 29 36.4 48.7 61.6 75.4 88.7 104.4
Cultivator
6 14.8 29 36.4 48.7 61.6 75.4 88.7 104.4
Power sprayer 5.5 14.4 25.4 38 52.5 67 83.2 100.3 -
Seed cleaner 12.6 33.2 58.9 87.3 120.5 - - - -
Agricultural trailer 2.5 6.5 11.5 17.2 23.8 30.4 37.7
Singh &45.4 53.6
Mehta, 2015
CIAE, Bhopal
 50

B. Power
: Percentage changeOperated
in population of male and female agricultural labourers in 2011 as compared
to 2001 superimposed with tractor density for states in plain areas.
14

Man Driven
Diesel engine based
Price : 5,00,000 to
1.1 : Tractor : (Force Orchard Mini) 7,00,000 Rs
• Specialized for vineyards, fruit & nut orchards
• Help farmers seat comfortably
• Pick high hanging fruits at the same time
• Allow easy passage between tree rows
• Mini space require
Tractor Mounted
Price : 15,000 to
1,00,000
1.2 : Land Leveller :
• It improves crop establishment, crop stand
• Improve water coverage and water loss. 
• It can reduce the operation time by 10 to 15 per cent. 
• Can reduce weeds by up to 40 per cent by levelling. 

Mehta et al., 2018

ICAR-CIAE, Bhopal
 Conclusion
51

The cultivation of crops with high yield and improved quality is becoming
an increasingly difficult undertaking as the population grows. In addition
to assisting farmers with automating their crop cultivation techniques,
artificial intelligence in horticulture also encourages farmers to switch to
precision cultivation for increased crop production and better quality while
using fewer resources. In this manner, extra resource and energy loss can
be reduced and more advantages can be realised.
 XXX

Thank You