Research Project
- Establishment of year-round cultivation technologies and halved fruiting cycle time
This research seeks to clarify the optimum environments (e.g., light, temperature, Co2, nutrient, etc.) for promoting growth and while developing dormancy-breaking technologies and strategies.
- Establish optimum environmental parameters to increase fruit yield
- High yield varieties
Other pursuits under topic 1 include the selection of high-yield varieties that are adaptable to factory production, the improvement of pollination methods, and enhancement of the fruiting percentage through suitable environmental control.
- Establishment of advanced health management technology
In order to maintain repeated tree use, this research seeks to develop real-time health monitoring technologies. Based on feedback from those technologies, it then engages in environment-friendly control of pests and diseases primarily through immunity improvement and application of biological pesticides.
- Establishment of cultivation information management technology through using IC tags?
Bringing together agricultural and industrial wisdom, Topics 2 and 4 works in tandem to develop systems for individual plant health and quality management.
- Enhanced quality fruit production
Establishes technologies for production of fruit with desirable traits (i.e., large size, high sugar content, high anthocyanin content, and high oxidation effect). (antioxidant?)
- Quality evaluation through minimally invasive methods
Within this topic, technologies are developed for determining valuable properties (i.e. sugar content and degree of ripeness among other high value components) through minimally invasive means using near infrared spectrophotometers.
- Autonomous plants pots
Research goals include the development of systems for the management and automatic transport of small trees based on accumulated cultivation and environmental data. It seeks to reinforce photosynthetic performance through optimum tree arrangement and to create the world’s first automatic diagnostic system for individual trees.
- Harvesting robots
Development of robots that automatically determine fruit characteristics and individually harvest high-quality fruits.