Cracking the data to
mitigate fruit cracking
The phenomenon of fruit cracking occurs mainly in the pre-harvest stage and initiates at the surface of the fruit, where cracks traverse the skin and penetrate the inner tissues. Extreme cracking can result in fruit splitting leading to pre-harvest fruit drop and yield loss.
Revolutionising fruit farming:
Innovative sensing techniques for crack-free harvests
The EU-funded project CrackSense will address the fruit cracking challenge,
focusing on real-time monitoring and prediction by utilising and upscaling sensing and digital data technologies
CrackSense steps in!
CrackSense highlights high throughput, real-time, sensing tools combined with advanced agri-environmental monitoring resulting in upscaling of the knowledge basis related to cracking and would allow its intensity prediction at the year-, region- and plot-scales.
Opportunity lies in the challenge
CrackSense will take science and practice related to cracking into a new level that goes far beyond the available SotA tools, offering augmented sensing tools to monitor cracking incidence at the fruit, plot and regional levels and environmental models to predict and mitigate cracking incidence and the resulting economical damage.
Why is CrackSense needed?
CrackSense will enable efficient management of the farmer’s resources and sustainability of the farmer’s actions. The CrackSense Solution will further provide concrete insights and recommendations that support the realisation of benefits for farmers, growers, rural communities and the environment through smart farming applications.
Yield losses along the entire production chain endanger the challenge of feeding the world. Climate changes, characterized by extreme climatic events with increased incidence and strength, dramatically increase yield losses. A significant source of yield losses is fruit cracking, which has dramatically increased in the last two decades, probably due to climate change. CrackSense embraces Smart Farming concepts to mitigate fruit yield losses due to cracking. It combines Information and Communication Technologies into agriculture, leading to a Third Green Revolution. CrackSense introduces multimodal sensor data in the experimental portfolio of agriculture and implements data fusion and Machine Learning on edge units for real-time information, potentially providing a cyber-physical system.  
Victor Alchanatis, D.Sc.
Researcher Institute of Agricultural Engineering, The Agricultural Research Organisation Of Israel - The Volcani Centre
Avi Sadka, Ph,D.
Professor of plant sciences
The Agricultural Research Organisation
Of Israel - The Volcani Centre
