2024 - Volume #48, Issue #3, Page #11
[ Sample Stories From This Issue | List of All Stories In This Issue | Print this story
| Read this issue]
Grain Grading Device Uses Machine Vision
 |
Their benchtop grain grading device is focused on matching high throughput to the high-volume capacities of today’s machinery.
As Ground Truth’s grading device is Canadian-made, the company’s focus is to use machine vision to first assess the visual characteristics of Canadian hard red spring wheat. An internal imaging chamber can be adjusted based on the grain and kernel size.
Canada’s guide outlines over 50 characteristics to be evaluated for quality including frost, maturity, mildewed kernels, and insect damage. Machine vision makes this possible.
“For our device to be successful, it needs to be comprehensive in all these characteristics,” says Divyesh Patel, COO. “It needs to fit seamlessly into an operation. That’s the only way we feel comfortable providing a grade, as otherwise it’s strictly informational.”
The device is also equipped with near-infrared spectroscopy to measure protein, moisture, wet gluten, and other non-visual characteristics.
The benchtop grading unit is pre-commercial with pilot tests scheduled with two farmers plus commercial grain buyers during the 2024 harvest season. A testing company will test their grader alongside their own lab units to ensure performance to specifications. If successful, Ground Truth will take public orders at the end of 2024 and the beginning of 2025.
Models are also being developed to handle the U.S. grain grading system for soy and corn. Patel hopes they’ll be available throughout North America sometime in 2025.
“It’s looking positive for us to grade soy and then corn,” Patel says. “Eventually we want all the major crops in the system.”
The first units built to grade Canadian hard red spring wheat and red lentils are being manufactured and assembled in Regina, Sask.
The machine vision model will be priced at approximately $19,000 CAD ($13,875 USD). The near-infrared spectrometer-equipped unit, including machine vision, will retail at $40,000 CAD ($29,190 USD).
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Ground Truth Agriculture, 662 1st Ave E, Regina, Sask., Canada S4N 5T6 (ph 306-552-7011; info@groundtruth.ag; www.groundtruth.ag).
Click here to download page story appeared in.
Click here to read entire issue
To read the rest of this story, download this issue below or click here to register with your account number.
