Handling Systems

Transplanting takes a robotic turn

Visser’s award-winning AutoStix tackles efficiency and labour shortage while staying environmentally friendly.

Winner of the 2018 GreenTech Innovation Award, Visser Horti Systems’ AutoStix is an open source transplanting system. Not only does it automate the labour-intensive and often slow process of sticking cuttings, it uses biodegradable strips to keep things environmentally friendly.

New greenhouse transport goes off-track

Transport within the greenhouse is about to get faster and easier as Berg Hortimotive heads into their last phase of developing a new autonomous harvesting trolley.

Leaving delicate herbs in capable hands

Among the many applications of On Robot’s robot grippers, they’re being used to pack herbs at Rosborg Food Holding, one of Denmark’s largest producers of herbs and miniature flowering plants.

Automation is creating new career opportunities says Inside View

February 2017 – I don’t very often check out the business section of the BBC News page, but a recent headline caught my eye. “In the not-too-distant future, our fields could be tilled, sown, tended and harvested entirely by fleets of co-operating autonomous machines by land and air.”1

The Need to Automate for Improved Greenhouse Efficiencies and Profitability

February 2017 – It’s not a question of “if” you’ll automate more of your crop production processes. It’s only a question of “when.”

The Sky’s the Limit with Vertical Farming

DECEMBER 2016 – Cold climate, economic downturn, empty buildings and warehouses have always spurred interest in indoor horticulture. Various terms have been used, such as indoor farming, vertical farming, container growing, vertical walls, and many others.

A Focus on Innovation

August 2016 – An Ontario-based agricultural automation leader in North America is now eyeing worldwide markets.

Vertical farming of strawberries in B.C.

Jan. 14, 2016, Chilliwack, B.C. – Affinor Growers’ proprietary vertical farming system will be used to grow greenhouse strawberries on a commercial scale.

Robotic Systems Soon in a Greenhouse Near You

Dr. Medhat Moussa is a professor in the school of engineering at the University of Guelph.

February 2016 — Bill Gates once predicted that every home in South Korea would have a robot by 2015, and that Japan’s robotic industry would reach $50 billion by 2025, says Dr. Medhat Moussa, a professor at the school of engineering, University of Guelph.

Robotics on the move in the greenhouse

Dec. 31, 2015, Guelph, Ont. – A University of Guelph engineering professor has been developing a labour-saving solution for greenhouse vegetables growers that he is now ready to put to the test in a working greenhouse – a human-sized robot that will harvest produce and remove leaves from plants.

Starke earns a place on Profit 500 list

Sept. 17, 2015, St. Catharines, Ont. — Canadian Business and PROFIT today ranked Stärke Material Handling Group No. 441 on the 27th annual PROFIT 500, the definitive ranking of Canada’s Fastest-Growing Companies.

Material Handling ABCs

Take your time in shopping for new equipment … and ask plenty of questions.

It’s not always easy to weigh the benefits of one company over the other when they all say the same thing online. So before you decide on a forklift service provider, you ought to visit their facilities and make a qualified decision from first-hand, eyewitness experience.

Robotics: Much More Than Just Investing in Labour Savings

June 2015 – Greenhouse vegetable grower Louis Chibante of Golden Acre Farms is big on innovation and automation.

SFU is getting a grip on produce handling challenges

Feb. 11, 2015, Burnaby, B.C. — Research to develop new smart-materials technology for handling delicate objects – including fruits and vegetables – is among Simon Fraser University projects sharing in more than $1.5 million in new money for projects funded by a federal government research-grant agency.

Eyeing Next Phase of Automation Inside View – February 2015

February 2015 – Machines have been saving humans from repetitive, dangerous or less demanding work for decades. Packaging and palletizing robots abound. In horticulture, we have “specialized, embodied artificial intelligent (a.i.) machines,” including transplanters and potting machines. Fruit grading lines, robotic sprayers and un-manned cart pullers are growing up.