South Australian tech firm AgPick Technology has collaborated with a fully integrated Riverland citrus operation to develop an innovative automated GPS-based picking app which will boost productivity, assure traceability, and help growers meet imminent Horticultural Award piece-rate requirements.

Currently in the development phase, AgPick Orchard has been designed in collaboration with Ingy’s Citrus, Berri, in time for peak season in April. 

AgPick Technology chief executive officer Henrietta Child said the app would place control in the hands of pickers and tractor drivers and allow them to work autonomously.

“The technology will work with pickers’ own equipment; it will not be reliant on supervisors and there will be no badge or bin scanning in the orchard. It’s a ‘hands-off’ solution yet provides information about who picked a bin and where they picked it.

“Our current AgPick reporting system will still be available to report pickers’ progress and productivity, including hours worked and break times.”

Ms Child said the app’s functionality was designed to work with new piece-rate requirements coming into effect on April 28.

“With pickers registered in the system, the app uses GPS locating to enable monitoring and reporting of pickers’ progress with little or no supervision.

“The new app is very light on data use and will run on most phones with GPS functionality. Training is minimal as the app does it all for you.”

Ms Child said the new app was transferrable to any tree crop. It would be the first time an AgPick product had been used in Australia’s citrus industry – a sector the technology firm had identified for growth potential for some time.

AgPick Orchard’s design was prompted by Ingy’s Citrus’s objectives to provide accurate timekeeping and productivity records with the coming award changes.

“Ingy’s Citrus approached us with some concepts for an automated picking solution and asked us to make it happen. We’re excited to be working with such a forward-thinking and dynamic operation,” Ms Child said.

Ingy’s Citrus director and fourth-generation producer, Michael Ingerson said he expected the app would meet the business’s key objectives for compliance and traceability, saving up to 15 hours a week in manual data collection (counting and recording).

“We’re generally on the forefront with technology. If we can identify an automated way to save time and create efficiencies, we’re all for it,” Mr Ingerson said.

The family-owned and operated grower-packer business produces five citrus lines over 300 hectares for export and domestic consumption year-round.

“Like the core AgPick product, AgPick Orchard is highly flexible and customisable. Any fresh produce operation which harvests by hand, can use it and implementation can be very straight-forward,” Ms Child said.

“But it has particular relevance to tree crops and environments where pickers may be working with less supervision.”

For more about AgPick Orchard or to become a tree crop beta tester, contact AgPick Technology (08) 7127 1095 or email info@agpick.com