Grant: Idea to Innovation

Indoor farms and greenhouses across North America use vegetable and fruit seedlings that are sprouted in specialized propagation facilities. These facilities cultivate a large number of seedlings each year, with a typical facility producing 20 to 30 million seedlings. The focus of the current project is to automate the labor-intensive task of stem-stake clipping, required to be performed on each seedling. Stem-stake clipping involves placing a plastic clip or a rubber band around the plant's main stem and a wooden stick to support the plant and prevent damage during transportation. This task requires a human worker to reach across a 1.5 m wide table or kneel on the floor for an extended period. Not only is this a physically demanding and painstaking task that takes a high toll on workers' bodies due to awkward body posture, but it is also one of the most time-consuming part of seedlings preparation that results in a bottleneck in the entire propagation process. Currently, all clippings are performed manually across all propagation facilities and greenhouses. The objective of this project is to develop an innovative solution for the autonomous clipping of seedlings. The results from this project will benefit the industrial partners, the province of Ontario, and the greenhouse industry as a whole through direct cost savings, avoiding work-related injuries, job creation, enhanced competitiveness, advancement of new knowledge and technologies in robotic agriculture, and environmental benefits through the use of non-plastic clips. The project provides an enriched environment for high-value training in robotics, software engineering, and machine learning.