Development of yield and harvesting time monitoring system for tomato greenhouse production

Abstract Tomato greenhouse growers need information about yield and harvesting time as a majority of working time to improve a yield, cultivating technique, and management of labor. We developed a tomato yield and harvesting time monitoring system for selective hand harvesting of fresh tomato. The monitoring system consists of an electronic balance, a handheld type barcode scanner, a microprocessor, and cart. Each barcode was set on each tomato plant. The monitoring system can measure and record harvested fruit weight and harvesting time, and save to micro SD card. The yield and harvesting time map were constructed using a spreadsheet software. We conducted a harvesting experiment to investigate monitoring data for 7 months, using 3 varieties. The developed monitoring system could be used in greenhouse environment without any trouble and any disturbance of harvesting work for all experimental term. By using monitoring system, we could get yield map, harvesting time map, and effect of greenhouse climate on yield and harvesting time. It is found that spatial deviation of the total harvested fruit's weight of DR03-103 was the highest. The results showed that in harvesting of fruits of DR03-103, more labor is needed and deviation of harvesting labor is higher. The result of investigation of effect of greenhouse climate and yield indicated that when greenhouse inside temperature increased, the number of harvested fruit and harvesting time is increasing from winter to spring. It was considered it was possible for growers to use yield and harvesting time information by using monitoring system.