Development of a Machine vision system for apple bud thinning in precision crop load management

Thinning is a critical practice in apple orchard management, directly influencing crop load and fruit quality. To assist automated crop load management, a machine vision system for apple bud detection was developed to be integrated with robotic platforms. The system employed a Kinect Azure sensor for real-time bud detection and branch diameter measurement, utilizing a YOLOv8-based object detection model trained and evaluated across multiple datasets. The evaluation identified the best-performing model by balancing precision, recall, and robustness in the complex and unstructured environments of apple orchards. Several training configurations were assessed, with the selected setup demonstrating a strong balance between precision (68 %), recall (55 %), F1-score (61 %), and mean average precision (mAP: 59 %) across diverse and unstructured orchard environments. This configuration, trained on a combination of FLIR and Kinect Azure data, was chosen for deployment due to its robustness and compatibility with the Kinect Azure sensor in real-world applications. Two proposed imaging methods for branch diameter measurement were validated against manual caliper-based measurements, with statistical analysis revealing no significant differences (p = 0.98). These findings confirm the semi-automated methods as reliable and labor-efficient alternatives for field applications. Additionally, the bud counting algorithm demonstrated accurate tracking and counting of apple buds, effectively avoiding omissions and duplications in real orchard settings. This study underscores the potential of vision systems to revolutionize apple bud thinning, providing a strong foundation for the development of fully automated solutions in precision orchard management.