4 ms·
Couldn't something be sprayed on the cherries to reduce surface tension and inhibit mold/bacteria so the cherries would dry w/o cracking? Then you could spray
by giardini 8y ago
Couldn't something be sprayed on the cherries to reduce surface tension and inhibit mold/bacteria so the cherries would dry w/o cracking? Then you could spray the fields with a fixed-wing craft. Penetration into the tree foliage might be a hurdle as well as cleaning off whatever you sprayed afterwards. Nonetheless farmers use sprays for almost everything these days.
Using helicopters as dryers seems very kludgy, expensive, and dangerous and little more than a stop-gap measure until something better comes along.
Certainly a robotic mid-sized to large helicopter-like drone designed to primarily hover would be safer and cheaper. It could have long legs (taller than cherry trees) and fans on the side to assist drying and to reduce energy consumption (it could set on the ground during drying and only lift off to change trees). A little fuzzy logic to control positioning and movement and boom - a new product!
- HeyLaughingBoy 8y agoI love apples. But for the longest time, starting about 20 years ago, I thought I had developed an allergy to apples because no matter what I did to clean them, including peeling the skin, I still had a badly itching throat and all my "usual" food allergy symptoms. Then after I bought a property that had wild apple trees and i found that I could eat the sweet ones with no issues, and could also eat the apples growing at a friend's house, I realized there was something being sprayed on commercial apples that I had an allergic reaction to. In short, the less crap that's sprayed onto my food, the better. So yeah, I'd rather pay more for cherries (I'm allergic to raw ones anyway!) than have to deal with the side effects of whatever water repellent is applied.
- organsnyder 8y agoI know someone who has a severe reaction to anything corn-based. Of course, he's unable to eat just about any processed foods, but he also has to watch out for some produce, as it's often sprayed with a corn-based protectant.