Brief Summary of Minutes of Annual Meeting

Minutes

Thursday Dec. 11th, 2008
1) Chair Marvin Pitts opened the meeting and welcomed the members. All members in attendance introduced themselves through an introduction round.

2) Ralph Cavalieri (Administrative Advisor) discussed the origins of the W1009 regional project. He mentioned that 25% of Hatch money is supposed to be spent on regional project activities.

3) Officers: motions were made and seconded, new officers installed were Chair: Marvin Pitts, Vice Chair: David Slaughter, Secretary: Tony Grift.

4) Marvin Pitts showed the NIMSS website:
http://nimss.umd.edu/homepages/home.cfm?trackID=10356 and how non-members and non Land-grant university employees can join. A suggestion was made to use Sharepoint as a communication medium. Discussion to use ASABE as a forum for communication.

5) Dan Schmoldt (National program leader, USDA) presented an introduction in the Land-Grant system, USDA and funding agencies within it. He shows statistics of funded proposals in 2008 (from virtually every state in the nation) and projected funding for SCRI in 2008-2012 being 230 Million (30/50/50/50/50 Million) of which $30 million was spent in 2008. Discussion on the SCRI program matching requirements not being very clear. Do we need a frequently-asked-questions (faq) list on the USDA/SCRI website? Q? Support letter that does not specify how matching funds will contribute to the project are not sufficient. Discussion whether it would make sense to "bundle" proposals rather than have separate smaller ones?

6) Four areas were identified as potential proposals. Discussion whether W1009 should create standards such as for vehicle communication. Consensus is to leave that with the ASABE committees such as PM48.

7) Dan Schmoldt presented "Winning Proposals", explained criteria, emphasized well written, professional, well organized, coherent proposals, having good seques among sections. Cosmetics are also important. Good proposals have a uniqueness component, get panels excited. Red flags are raised if proposals do not have sufficient scientific and technical merit, no decent impact assessment, are not innovative, if the PIs are not qualified and do not have proper infrastructure to carry out the project.

8) Paul Heinemann presented the winning proposal "Innovative Technologies for Thinning of Fruit". Discussion about voiding IP if proposals are put on the web.

9) Sanjay Singh presented Carnegie Mellon's winning proposal CASS. He describes in detail how the proposal was developed, what the hurdles and pitfalls were, how he found the right people to work with, and the time requirements for developing such a large proposal.

10) The members broke out into smaller discussion groups according to the following topics:

• 1) Labor assistance technology / Production efficiency (Qin Zhang)
• 2) Supply chain management/Food safety/Traceability (Alex Thomasson)
• 3) Knowing the "state" of the crop (David Slaughter)
• 4) Non-destructive Specialty Crop Quality Assessment (Loren Gautz)

Friday Dec. 12th, 2008
Communication:
1) Website

• a. Through NIMSS site:
  http://nimss.umd.edu/homepages/meet.cfm?trackID=10356 Annual report through website: trade journal types? Pubs: photos and videos? Can we put up PowerPoint presentations from the meeting (Marvin will collect all meeting PowerPoints). The site is a public spot, we can advertise our activities there too. Tony Grift will provide meeting materials (minutes, list of attendees) and test if videos can be put on the website. We need links to other websites, member home pages, trade people, link to secure area to exchange information. Suggestion to have a paper repository to help in writing proposals. Discussion whether the web materials can be used by others, consensus is that everything on the website is in public domain, if used by others, please properly acknowledge.

(2) How to communicate among ourselves and constituents, general public.

• a. Jeff Steiner ARS, program leader) on communication. Jeff mentioned the SCRI roadmap workshop held in Crystal City where CSREES, ARS, NASA, NSF, industry, government and universities were represented. Industry was not happy with research. They requested a true involvement in research and development. The group had biweekly conference calls. Question for our project is how to keep the momentum going? W1009 had only 2 industry participants. Jeff suggests finding out why invitees did not show up. Q? Can we use the website as tool to engage industry? Put a list of growers on website? Jeff will send attendance list of Crystal city Workshop website: http://specialtycrop.info/finalagrisite/index.php. We may want to model our website after this one. It is proposed to the membership to register on this site. Ralph Cavalieri stresses the need for industry contacts. Within USDA/ARS we have engineering in commodity crops, get them organized and point toward Specialty Crop Research. W1009 is a research project, but we need extension people in here. Q? Can we do another Crystal City workshop? The Kennewick, WA model worked well. Marvin Pitts: We all need to take the SCRI message back to grass roots meetings and promote W1009.
  
• b. Other groups, manufacturers? How do we ask them? Any organizations we can target? Tulare CA is a specialty crop farm show http://www.worldagexpo.com/ . Farm equipment shows? Don Erbach: ASABE Annual International Meeting has little participation from machinery manufacturers. PM48 committee may do conference on specialty crops. Qin Zhang: AMC (Agricultural Machinery Conference in Cedar Rapids http://www.amc-online.org/ ) maybe be an option. ASABE/ATOE (Automation Technology for Off-road Equipment) is another biannual meeting that cycles US/Asia/Europe. AETC, Louisville, KY National Farm Equipment show usually in around mid Feb. AETC talked about moving to Tulare. Tulare is huge, we need to prepare at least a year ahead, Korvan/Oxbo show up. Jeff Steiner: Deere and other major manufacturers are very non-engaging, better go with small companies. Reza Ehsani: In citrus smaller manufacturers are open and actually requests research to be done collaboratively. Consensus is to target smaller manufacturers at Tulare trade show, and to have our next W1009 meeting there in Jan. 2010. Let's identify people who can go to manufacturers and pitch W1009. Alex Thomasson proposes to ask whether ASABE is interested in moving AETC to Tulare. After discussion, this is agreed upon. Jean Mari Peltier can help contact Tulare.
  
• c. We need to engage social scientist etc. How do we go back to home institutions and get them to work with us? Money talks, get the word out there is money available and we need interdisciplinary teams. Give seminars, spread the word among other scientists. Ideally 1/3 of W1009 should be engineers. We need to maintain a living document with project overviews. We need a W1009 flyers/brochure (slideshows) (there is one for NE1008). Loren Gautz shows a flyer that was made for earlier Regional projects.

3) Group discussions

• a. Labor assistance technology / Production efficiency (Qin Zhang qzhang@illinois.edu)
  
  
  • i. Pruning technology (Leader: Marvin Pitts)
    
  • ii. Vegetable harvesting fresh market (Leader: Lie Tang)
    
  • iii. Non-selective harvesting equipment (Leader Reza Ehsani)
    
  • iv. Targeted within-canopy chemical application (Leader XXX)

• b. Supply chain management / Food safety/Traceability (Alex Thomasson thomasson@tamu.edu)
  
  
  • i. Tracing produce quality and safety through the supply chain + sensors for diagnosis of problems
    
  • ii. Food safety salmonella detection
    
  • iii. Identify high risk points
    
  • iv. Funding source SCRI 2010 /AFRI
    
  • v. Develop Smart Sensing Containers
    
  • vi. Apply principle to multiple commodities

• c. Knowing the "state" of the crop (David Slaughter dcslaughter@ucdavis.edu)

• d. Non-destructive Specialty Crop Quality Assessment (Loren Gautz lgautz@hawaii.edu)
  
  
  • i. Measurement of sugars, oils, acids, color, size, firmness, volatiles.

  • ii. Impact (revenue enhancing)
    
    
    • 1. optimal timing for harvest
      
    • 2. Product consistency
      
    • 3. Market scheduling

    • iii. Develop instrument clusters for in-field quality measurement

    • iv. Develop post-harvest sorting technology

    • v. Develop detectors for insect infestation

4) Every leader will prepare a one pager to show the proposal. Marvin will put out an outline and put in on the website. For next years' proposals the contact program manager is Dan Schmoldt, and Tom Bewick. Please be aware that they expect over 400 proposals.

5) Planning next meeting 2010
Objectives of the next meeting

• Communication and invite industry.
• Can we do a tour (visiting Tulare farm show can be construed as such)?
• Presentations of successful new SCRI proposal
• Progress reports for currently ongoing projects

Alex Thomasson will contact ASABE to see if they are interested in moving AETC to Tulare. Jim Schupp: Do we need to contact the Europeans to see where they are? Italy has a good trade show we could attend.

Marvin thanks the membership and Dan Guyer thanks Marvin and Paul Heinemann on behalf of the membership.

W1009 Meeting adjourns at 11:45am.

Respectfully submitted by W1009 Secretary Tony Grift.

• 1. Publication of a collection of specialty crop research needs developed by grower organizations, organized into common needs on W1009 NIMSS web page.

• 2.Formation of six working groups centered around six projects, tasked to further refine each project's scope and objectives, and seek external funding.
  
  
  • a. Site-specific application of materials in orchards (Qin Zhang)
    
  • b. Machine-assisted selective pruning (Marvin Pitts)
    
  • c. Non-selective harvesting equipment (Leader Reza Ehsani)
    
  • d. Supply chain management/Food safety/Traceability (Alex Thomasson)
    
  • e. Knowing the "state" of the crop (David Slaughter)
    
  • f. Non-destructive Specialty Crop Quality Assessment (Loren Gautz)

Activities (planned for 2009)

• 1. Design a W1009 web site, linked to Crystal City web site. The site will publish current W1009 partnerships, meeting notes and presentations, a library of research related to specialty crop equipment design, and provide project milestones to the public, growers and equipment manufacturers.

• 2. Develop partnerships and cooperative research projects in four critical areas for specialty crop equipment automation (coordinator given in parenthesis):
  
  
  • a. Labor Assistance technology (Qin Zhang)
    
  • b. Supply chain management/Food safety/Traceability (Alex Thomasson)
    
  • c. Knowing the "state" of the crop (David Slaughter)
    
  • d. Non-destructive Specialty Crop Quality Assessment (Loren Gautz)

• 3.Coordinate next W1009 meeting with one or more related multi-state projects

• 4. Hold next W1009 meeting in conjunction with Tulare CA farm equipment show. Make a presentation at the farm show describing W1009 objectives and current projects

• 5. Engage agricultural scientists and social scientists in W1009 projects.

Milestones for 2009 Activities:

• 1. Select a hosting site for the W1009 web page and design the W1009 web page site
  
• 2. Produce project overviews for the six projects identified in the Output section
  
• 3. Identify related multi-state projects and initiate discussions on joint meetings