Step 13: Harvesting

When harvesting the potatoes, a lot of information about the harvested product is collected. The aim is to know how many potatoes, with how much tare and with what quality of different parts within a plot. For this, Van den Borne potatoes uses 2 different techniques: a yield measurement and a hyper spectral camera to assess the quality.

Yield measurement:
The yield measurement isthe basis of precision agriculture. The goal of yield measurement is to gain more insight into the yield variations of parcels. Based on the yield measurements on the potato harvester, we make a yield map per field. We can compare this with other data cards that we have obtained from everything we do with precision farming. With the help of these data cards we can determine the yield potential of the potatoes. In addition, yield maps can be used to evaluate and plan site-specific cultivation operations. The image below shows an example of a yield card, in which the blue color represents the highest yield and the red color represents the lowest yield. In addition, the weighing sensor is mounted on the conveyor belt to the storage bunker.

Hyper spectral camera:
Not only weighing sensors are mounted on the harvester, but also hyperspectral cameras. Real-time tare can be determined with the help of these hyperspectral cameras. In addition, the cameras measure the% of stones / clods / soil in the mass flow. Furthermore, these cameras can be used to measure the sorting sizes of potatoes in the mass flow. The cameras communicate this data to the Yield Master PRO, which translates the data into location-specific data. The reason we use these cameras is because we can determine the gross yield using weighing sensors. But we are mainly interested in the net yield so if we know the amount of tare we can calculate the net yield. Below is an image where the camera images of the hyperspectral camera are shown.