Solar panels trial on polytunnels
CA-WN's Farming Correspondent, Rupert Knowles, shared this article about flexible solar panels on polytunnels being used to power farm equipment, and added some comments of his own on the possibilities of technology for fruit harvesting.
Fred Searle
I found this article interesting because:
- It is possible to use tunnel roofs for flexible solar panels
- Sufficient light penetrates to grow the crop below as well as generating electricity
- It will enable a switch from the internal combustion engine in remote locations or the need for trailing wires nearer home
- There will be power on hand for irrigation pumps and nutrient injection equipment. Robotic picking trolleys too.
- One of the major problems for protected strawberries is powdery mildew. Instead of spraying chemicals, some growers are using a gantry with UV light when pickers or other workers are not in the tunnel. Having electricity on hand will make this much more practicable.
A video of the Thorvald UV strawberry ‘sprayer’ is available on the website: https://sagarobotics.com/crops/strawberries/
Politicians are obsessed with reducing foreign labour for harvesting. This is a load of nonsense! Much research money is wasted on robotic harvesting. It is very good for foreign students and other young people to travel abroad and experience other cultures: what better way to support themselves than by harvesting fruit and vegetables. These students are highly motivated and work very fast. Whilst it will be possible to develop a robotic strawberry or raspberry picker, it will not be much faster than a human, and will be very expensive and liable to break down. If alternative labour is not available to fulfil a supermarket contract, the grower will be in real trouble. However, the key to efficient harvesting is to mechanise the ancillary tasks such as supplying empty trays to the picker and removing full ones, weighing and recording for piecework, i.e. to make the best use of manual labour. On site electricity will be very useful for this.
Potentially this technology could be useful to growers of other crops in polytunnels or even be adopted on a small scale by allotment holders.