Handle with care [robots in horticulture]

FROM THE HEADLINES, you might think that robots are on the point of replacing hard-working human fruit, veg and flower pickers, thus solving the difficulties that farmers have in recruiting a workforce to bring in the harvest. The reality is somewhat different. Robots that can mass-harvest horticultural crops may be at least five years away – but prototypes are already working in fields, glasshouses and poly tunnels to plant cuttings, control disease, pick berries and assist in the breeding process.