ONTARIO, CANADA - Though we may only be scratching the surface of what technology can do for the produce industry, advancements continue to be made towards improving the harvest process. And if a certain Canada-based research facility has its way, mushrooms could be next.

The Vineland Research and Innovation Centre in Ontario says it has developed a robot capable of picking mushrooms autonomously, according to a release. The company believes this could have quite an impact on the industry due to how much the harvesting process depends on hand-picking, as well as training employees to do so correctly.

Cost is always a question when it comes to bigger and better technologies, which the program appears to have kept top of mind. Not only does the center hope to improve the accuracy and dependability of the mushroom harvesting practice, but the affordability of the tech that provides it. According to the release, one of the goals of this technology, besides improving the dependability and accuracy of mushroom harvesting, is making it affordable for the industry growers.

The team’s robot is capable of identifying which mushrooms to pick when, picking those mushrooms, de-stemming them, and dropping them into a store-ready container. While a local mushroom grower has let Vineland access his facility so that they could better understand the mushroom growing and harvesting process, the Centre has stated that it is proceeding cautiously to ensure the quality of the automation. It is, however, reportedly ready to move into the next phase of the process.

Supported through FedDev Ontario, as well as the federal-provincial-territorial initiative Growing Forward 2 supporting Vineland’s in-kind contributions, the team also has a few floral-focused technologies in the works. In the future, it hopes it will expand from working with mushroom and ornamental greenhouse growers, to orchards and vegetable greenhouses as well.

And when the time comes, Vineland’s objective for this mushroom harvesting robot to be licensed and marketed worldwide, funding future research with the intellectual property’s royalties.