How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future | Hacker News Reader

How Driscoll’s Is Hacking the Strawberry of the Future

bloomberg.com

35 pointshgennaro35 comments

The technology is kind of cool.

Unfortunately, I absolutely loathe Driscoll's raspberries. I will buy anybody else's raspberries first, and I will simply not use raspberries if I have to buy Driscoll's.

They're big and red, but they're too firm and fleshy. They have very little juice, and, even if you get lucky and they're sweet, they don't have a robust raspberry flavor. I used to fight with the yellowjackets to pick raspberries in the Northeast US. I can't even imagine anything in nature wanting these raspberries.

I'm not terribly fond of their strawberries and blackberries either, but they're no different from the rest of the industry on those. Again, the fruits are too big, too fleshy, and not juicy enough. Consequently, they are far less flavorful.

This is standard across the industry. Water content == bruising and lost sales. So, anything with water content gets bred until the water goes away. Tomatoes, raspberries, strawberries, etc. have all gotten this treatment.

It's just like roses, we've bred them to last long when cut, but that breeds out the fact that it smells like a rose.

At some point, we have to accept that getting that last "9" of efficiency on a biological organism isn't actually worth it.

Reiter/Driscoll's is incredibly progressive and tech savvy as a grower. Their research operation is truly first class. They are the only grower we've worked with that has writen their own API client without any assistance--pretty slick for a decades old company whose main expertise is in trucking, labor, land, and plants.

Your comment made me start reading about your company. Really cool stuff! Do you use drones or regular aircraft?

Ultimately we are platform agnostic: Once drones are economically efficient, reliable, safe, we'll happily transition to them. Until then, we'll use regular aircraft that have proven themselves as economical collection platforms.

There is an interesting image[1] at the bottom of the article, about how to extract the DNA from a strawberry, surprised (and partially sceptical) that it's really that simple.

[1] http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iBaJbMBMgtrI/v1/-1x-1.jpg

It really is that easy. I did some very simple splicing in a genetic engineering lab in undergrad with soybeans, and while there was less DNA (which we extracted for PCR), the process was still mostly centrifuging and alcohol.

Here's another source on the strawberry thing[1].

[1] http://genetics.thetech.org/online-exhibits/do-it-yourself-s...

It helps that strawberries are octoploid, they have 8 copies of each chromosome. I remember doing this in a high school biology lab. (Much more fun than enzyme extraction from livers...)

I always find it fun and interesting to see all the complexities of other fields that one would normally not think about. This did a great job of bringing light to something I had considered pretty mundane.

The caption on panel #3 of the "DNA shot" graphic made me burst a blood vessel.

Here's how I extract DNA with fun kitchen science.

  1. Freeze.
  2. Add dish detergent and NaCl.
  3. Puree in blender.
  4. Thaw.  Stir *very gently* from this point forward.
  5. Add meat tenderizer and/or contact lens solution.
  6. Filter the mess to get mostly clear fluid.
  7. Layer rubbing alcohol over the solution.
  (If you use ethanol, make sure it's high-proof.)
  8. Draw DNA and RNA up from aqueous layer through alcohol layer with a kebab skewer.

Does anyone know how strawberries are harvested? I've been toying with the idea of a produce harvesting robotics startup. But I guess the first step is to talk to some farmers?

Humans are currently too inexpensive to make a harvesting robot worth the cost (sadly enough).

Let's say you spend $10M on R&D (a very low number in my opinion), each robot costs $50k to build, and maintenance/repairs cost $5k/year. You decide to charge your first customer $100k because you have to cover some of your R&D, and you pass all the maintenance costs on to them.

For that $105k per year, a farmer could hire ~8 people for an entire year. But most growers only need labor for a few months at the most. So, assuming a crop that requires people for about 3 months, you're actually looking at 32 humans vs. a single robot.

If the economics made sense, people would use harvesting robots. But at this point, picking fruit is something humans are particularly good at and computers are particularly bad at, and humans are still very inexpensive.

Your accounting ignores the uncertainty inherent in immigrant labor -- i.e. all the indirect costs associated with severe labor shortages when the political winds shift. The story in Georgia a few years back is telling [1]. For example, if immigration is curtailed, labor shortages will cause issues. If immigration is permitted, then healthcare costs could skyrocket. Robots are (at least) predictable -- and that can be a huge win in a lot of cases.

[1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-u...

On the other hand, in this reality: http://www.machines-simon.com/en/our-machines/vegetable-harv... http://www.tumoba.nl/en/products.php/vegetable-harvesters/le... http://automatedag.com/ http://www.oxbocorp.com/Products/ProcessedVegetables.aspx

More variables: picking only ripe fruit; handling the fruit more carefully; picking more rapidly so you can share the robot with many growers; refrigerating the fruit from the moment of picking. Any of these could make it worthwhile?

This is more an argument for an augmented human system than it is a slam dunk for something completely autonomous.

For example an unmanned, refrigerated, follow-me cart with a soft hopper could be a multiplier on picking productivity without all the hassles of actual mobile manipulation and perception.

Humans have evolved to be good at identifying and handling ripe fruit. I think a machine could be better, but it'd take a ton of R&D.

If a machine picks fruit 2x faster (which is unlikely, check out a YouTube video of people picking), then you still only need 2 people to beat it in efficiency.

Good points. I guess your argument might vary by crop though. So I'm curious if there are crops that are closer to that economic threshold. Mangos?

I've heard of crops where a machine shakes the tree, and the crop falls to the ground (maybe some kind of nut?). Then another machine vacuums them up and separates them from other debris.

I realize that planting isn't the same thing as harvesting, but I once had an acquaintance who was a salesperson for an Australian startup that made automated planting machines. Imagine a robot about the size of a small refrigerator that creeps along the field on bulldozer treads, digging holes and dispensing seeds as it goes.

To try and sell these things, my acquaintance would go out in the field and work alongside the farmers for weeks at a time to try and demonstrate the robot's value. Invariably something would break, and the engineers back at the main office would quickly turn around a design fix.

Although the farmers were usually patient and supportive, rarely did they end up buying. The company went out of business several years ago. I don't mention this anecdote to discourage you from your idea; just to suggest that the problem may end up being a lot more difficult than it may seem.

Often, having a superior product/method isn't enough. You also have to create a cultural change in the target market. If they don't wake up every morning thinking, "I wish someone would offer me [insert product/service here]", then it's very hard to sell it to them.

The Blue River (robotic harvesting startup) "lean startup" story is super (super!) illustrative: https://medium.com/startup-down/how-blue-river-used-the-lean...

Yes, you should talk to as many farmers (and labor companies) as possible.

The strawberry commission is also funding a start-up that is specifically focused on strawberry harvesting. However, the industry has done a lot with partial automation.

They have these multi-row picking support tractors that mean that the pickers don't have to spend much time walking with boxes (or running!! they are paid by weight or box) and can spend time doing the thing that is hard to automate.

Alleging Labor Abuses, U.S. and Mexican Workers Call for Boycott of Driscoll’s Berries

http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/17865/alleging_labor_a...

http://boycottsakumaberries.com/why-boycott/

I'd like natural strawberries, thank you very much!!!

Edit: The downvoters are free to be subjects for future genetic engineering projects themselves.

All of the down voters are already subjects of genetic engineering projects. Two specimens were brought together. Their dna was shared and 23 chromosomes were combined from each of the specimens to create a new experimental offspring.

I imagine that many of the down voters also are creating future genetic engineering projects in much the same way. Attempting to, and occasionally succeeding in, combining their dna with another specimen to create offspring.

If only we had more natural human creation as opposed to this GMO human combination that seems to be popping up in the marketplace...

The really hilarious thing is that this article is entirely about traditional breeding. Genetic engineering or modification isn't mentioned even once. Your bias is kind of amusing in how reactionary it is.

>Edit: The downvoters are free to be subjects for future genetic engineering projects themselves.

Where do you think food came from in the first place?

Do you seriously think strawberries are in any way a product of a natural process?

this use of the word hacking makes me barf

New for 2016: presenting the new iStrawberry!

Driscoll strawberries are disgusting when compared to a more natural and naturally grown strawberry.

What kind is that, exactly? Since, you know, humans have been selecting and cultivating plants for specific characteristics since the beginning of agriculture. And that's all that this article is describing, saying "I like this characteristic, lets try breeding it with this other strain and see what comes about". I would be interested in these primitive, untouched by man strains you seem to be referencing, as such, and where you found them.

I found some brand of organic strawberries here in the US that tasted exactly like wild strawberries, but were of course much larger and sweeter, surpassing the original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fragaria_vesca

Also worth noting is that there is no such thing as a "natural" strawberry, they're all hybrids: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry

Have you ever eaten a strawberry.

All that confirmation bias in such a short comment.

Nothing is more natural than having opinions organically cultivated by the nature fallacy.

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