SELECTIVELY TREATING PLANT ITEMS

• Main Authors: DeMaster, Andrew A, Killilea, T. Howard, DeMaster, Rachel E
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 20.04.2023
• Subjects: CALCULATING; CHEMICAL RIPENING OF FRUIT OR VEGETABLES; COMPUTING; CONVEYING; COUNTING; DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS OR METHODS, SPECIALLY ADAPTED FORADMINISTRATIVE, COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORYOR FORECASTING PURPOSES; FOODS OR FOODSTUFFS; HANDLING THIN OR FILAMENTARY MATERIAL; HUMAN NECESSITIES; MACHINES, APPARATUS OR DEVICES FOR, OR METHODS OF, PACKAGINGARTICLES OR MATERIALS; PACKING; PERFORMING OPERATIONS; PHYSICS; PRESERVING, e.g. BY CANNING, MEAT, FISH, EGGS, FRUIT,VEGETABLES, EDIBLE SEEDS; STORING; SYSTEMS OR METHODS SPECIALLY ADAPTED FOR ADMINISTRATIVE,COMMERCIAL, FINANCIAL, MANAGERIAL, SUPERVISORY OR FORECASTINGPURPOSES, NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR; THE PRESERVED, RIPENED, OR CANNED PRODUCTS; THEIR TREATMENT, NOT COVERED BY OTHER CLASSES; TRANSPORTING; UNPACKING

Methods and systems for selectively applying a treatment to a plant item and/or managing a plant item supply chain are provided. The method may include conveying, in an industrial processing line, at least one plant item in the batch of plant items to a sensing region having one or more sensors, assessing, with the one or more sensors and a computing device, one or more properties of the at least one plant item associated with ripeness and/or another attribute, optionally conveying the at least one plant item to a treatment region, optionally determining a treatment to apply to the at least one plant item based on the assessed one or more properties; and optionally applying, in the treatment region, the treatment to the at least one plant item.