Following approximately 4 years of development HarvestEye Ltd have released a British designed, engineered and built 3D camera based technology system capable of supporting growers with a great level of insight into a harvested potato crop. Originally part of B-Hive Agritech Innovation company HarvestEye is now its own limited company and Grimme have distribution rights of the technology. The B-Hive company focus on solving existing problems in the agricultural industry and HarvestEye certainly offers some great features and benefits to potato growers.
The intelligent 3D camera system HarvestEye was launched at the British Potato Event in 2019 and hold a UK patent and the international approval is currently pending. HarvestEye sits above a harvester elevator or processing belt in a plant and measures potato length, width and depth to provide a detailed tuber size breakdown of what has been harvested helping growers market accurately and confidently to purchasers. The system will show the average size of tuber in store and set up is simple with the operator only needing to enter a field name and size band for the camera to look for. Data is uploaded to a cloud for processing and this is where the subscription cost is generated. Once processed the grower is delivered a bar graph display of sizes harvested including the total number of tubers in that field supporting a yield in tonnes.
Linden Heaton, Operations Manager for HarvestEye explained the system is 90-95% accurate and easily installed as a retro fit to other makes of harvester or will be available directly via Grimme UK. “In addition to a bar graph we also deliver a google map of the potato yield distribution in a field helping growers identify problem areas or where improvements can be made” explained Linden. The HarvestEye system is designed to give producers an insight to the crop in store rather than an exact breakdown however this supports more accurate and better returns, more precise agronomy and supporting long term sustainable growth.
We look forward to sharing more information later in the season when we will revisit the HarvestEye in field on a machine.
