We have worked with many fruit and vegetable growers over the years to build custom reports using the data captured by our labor tracking systems. Custom reports are often commissioned so that growers can directly import 2nd Sight data into their payroll software. This ensures a fast, simple, and seamless payroll process during harvest, the most hectic time of year.

For our customer support team, September is a welcomed month with small fruit harvest (cherries and berries) wrapping up in the Northwest. We start to shift gears, working with nurseries who begin their fall inventory. Our TallyTrak and InstaCaliper systems help commercial nurseries capture the counts and sizes of their stock so that they know what they can sell. Every data point uploads to our Portal, tagged with size, variety, location and often a grade. From there, a grower can filter a log and download entries into a spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. Eliminating manual data entry increases accuracy and saves time. Both aspects are important for a nursery trying to be more efficient and productive.

In the last couple of years, we have worked more with nurseries to setup and build reports that streamline importation of 2nd Sight data into nursery inventory management software. Our software allows the user to define the data fields that need to be associated with each measurement or count. We have become familiar with ways to set up these lists of information to be more conducive to importing and still make sense for the operator out in the field. The InstaCaliper and TallyTrak software can produce files that import successfully into inventory software packages such as GrowPoint, eGrow, and SBI software.

If you are currently hand calipering, using pen and paper to record, transcribing hand-written notes to an electronic spreadsheet, then hand-entering your inventory counts into an inventory software program, imagine the time savings by recording your inventory electronically with the InstaCaliper and TallyTrak systems. Capturing inventory is as easy as tap, swipe, sync, generate, download, import.

Some nurseries even think about doing inventory more often since its less of a time investment. At a minimum, current employees can spend less time doing such a monotonous task and more time on other jobs that are better suited for humans. Electronic data capture improves accuracy and recordkeeping so nurseries can maximize profits by knowing exactly what they have to sell. Pushing inventory data from 2nd Sight systems directly into an inventory management software is really the icing on the cake. Sometimes it can be a challenge to change a process that has not changed for decades, but I urge every nursery out there to “take a leaf of faith” on this technology.

In the last couple of weeks, I have received news about many annual agriculture and specialty crop industry conventions, conferences, and trade shows going virtual (the Lynden Ag Show, the NW Hort Expo, and the Great Lakes Expo to name a few). As an exhibitor, I do not know exactly what to expect and I am sure that many attendees are wondering what these virtual events will look like, too.

How do I prepare for a virtual trade show? How do I reconnect with current customers and meet new growers in the same way? How can farmers learn and evaluate technology that becomes more tangible on a show floor? Will communication on a digital platform give our company enough credibility that may be more easily established in face-to-face conversations? For a new adopter of technology (someone who might be more hesitant to jump on the bandwagon), will it be enough to only meet virtually? Will these people even "attend" virtual events?

I did a little research on what people are saying about virtual conferences and trade shows. One positive, there is a lower cost to entry. The traveling can be a fun part of attending a show—as an attendee and exhibitor. It is a great excuse to get out of town for a change in scenery, try new restaurants (often on the company’s dime), and meet up with industry colleagues and friends. However, these benefits do come at a cost. Without these travel expenses, more exhibitors and more attendees can potentially benefit from the virtual event.

Another positive, flexibility. Often, you can view content on your own time when it is more convenient for you. No need to block two or three full days out of your busy life to spend dawn until dusk at the convention center. Access industry specialists, exhibitors, and the content you are looking for while at home (for many of us right now) or in the office.

I came across a video emphasizing the importance as a virtual exhibitor to, “think out of the booth.” Do not expect an in-person trade show or exhibit hall because you will be disappointed, or have a mindset that prevents you from taking advantage of the opportunities a virtual show offers. Shifting expectations can be a challenge. Many of these Ag shows have taken place for decades. However, I would argue that 2nd Sight, and many other Ag tech companies, are trying to do just that—shift the mindset of the specialty crop industry in terms of new technology applications and adoption. As an exhibitor, our goal is to “think out of the booth” and use technology and virtual platforms to better justify the case for technology in the farm environment.

I think the specialty crop industry should get on-board with virtual. Farming has entered the digital age. It is time to use online platforms to more easily demo, well, online software and platforms that will help farmers better manage their fruit, vegetable, nursery, or greenhouse operations. This year, the physical 2nd Sight booth will be less of a booth and more like a solution center where product demos and video content can more easily be shared, viewed, and discussed.

Why do you attend conventions and conferences? Do you enjoy the travel, the camaraderie seminars, and industry updates? Or do you see these events as an opportunity to make new connections, reconnect with current suppliers and customers, and learn about new products? Or, do you go to stock your desk with vendor pens and other swag (send me your address and I will send you some pens)? 2020 has been a year of challenges, and a year that has pushed our resiliency, adaptability, and creativity. The only constant is change, let’s embrace it.

Cherries, a sign of summertime in the Pacific Northwest. Another cherry season begins, and for many growers, the whirlwind only lasts a few weeks. Like other crops, cherry harvest continues to move north as the season progresses. Up in Kelowna BC, a later July start can carry the cherry harvest into September, if growers are lucky.

In 2020, we have worked with a handful of cherry growers in British Columbia who benefited from the Traceability Funding Program. The program reimbursed growers and packers for equipment and software purchases that improve food safety and tracing at their farms. The funding helped several growers implement the FairPick weighing system to better track who picked what and where out in the field. The FairPick also requires less contact which is important in times of social distancing because it eliminates passing punch cards back and forth between pickers and checkers. I applaud the Canadian government. There has been no better time amid the COVID-19 health crisis to help support farmers to adopt better food safety practices and traceability systems.

However, traceability in the packinghouse is just as important. Maintaining a link from received bins to finished products shipped provides very important information when quality or health issues arise. Implementing an electronic produce tracking system in the processing facility at Valley Orchards is a new project that is taking shape and adding another layer of “agtech” to an already very automated processing line.

High-tech Farming

A recent visit to the packinghouse at Valley Orchards was a reminder that many growers have implemented impressive technology to help decrease labor costs and improve the quality of their produce. The building is a maze of conveyors, sorters, electronics, and optics that streamline the processing of their own cherries and cherries from other Okanagan Valley farms. Out of context, the operator’s station could be mistaken for a complicated security system. Instead of monitoring people in the facility, the cameras and computers monitor fruit as it moves through each stage, from clipping bunches, to hydrocooling, to sorting by “row” size, and detecting defects that kick the cherries off the line. This newer application of conveyors and sorting equipment was not completely novel, but the cameras, computers, and software replacing human eyes and hands makes this packing line beneficial to Valley Orchards. The challenges for the engineers who were tasked to design such a processing line included maintaining a balance between simplicity, features, and reliability.

The StockTrak system presents similar challenges. Implementing a new system, even if using barcodes, scanners, and label printers which have all been around for decades, takes careful planning, time, and several iterations. As the development of the software continues, we strive for a balance between the system’s simplicity with the granularity of data, flexibility to adapt to other processes while keeping the project scope in mind, and implementation of error-checking while maintaining an easy-to-use interface.

I am excited to see the StockTrak system implemented and how it will evolve to help other produce growers and packers improve crop traceability and be a powerful inventory management tool.