The Swiss startup MycoSense, founded in 2021, aims to modernize the traditional manual mushroom picking technology using artificial intelligence. Equipped with specialized sensors and a visual scanner, their device named MycoSense Spotlight provides harvesting assistance to facilitate mushroom picking. Its use is of great significance in increasing harvesting efficiency and educating pickers.
Mushroom picking – always at the right time
When aiming for economical mushroom cultivation, the timing of harvesting is crucial. Factors such as the appearance, integrity, shape, and size of the fruitbody are important. Additionally, the economic aspect, i.e., the weight of mushrooms that can be harvested from a unit area, should not be overlooked. Experienced mushroom growers know that only mushrooms at the peak of their growth should be harvested, allowing other fruitbodies to continue growing as long as possible. It is also necessary to thin out mushrooms growing in clusters to make place for the growth of younger mushrooms. Traditionally, this is how the yield of the cultivation bed can be maximized. For pickers, this often involves a long and challenging learning process.
Since the late 2000s, labour shortages in the European mushroom industry have become critical. In recent years, the immigration of workers from the East has perhaps helped to reduce the workforce problem. The main question today regarding pickers is how to teach them efficient mushroom picking and how to retain them in the company after training. Since properly training a good picker can take months, even up to a year, the quality and duration of training are crucial.
Advantages of MycoSense Spotlight
Beyond increasing harvesting efficiency, this Swiss innovation is capable of shortening the duration of harvesting education. The principle of the applied technology is simple: it marks mushrooms suitable for picking with a green color. Thanks to this marking, pickers can focus more concentratedly on their task. The size of the harvested mushrooms becomes more uniform, and their weight within the tray is also standardized. As only optimally developed mushrooms end up in the tray, the yield per unit cultivation area increases.
The MycoSense Spotlight device is designed for wireless operation and can be easily attached to the side of the picking lorry. It can be applied in any traditional cultivation environment. The scanned area for mushroom analysis and marking is 1 m x 70 cm. Within this harvesting area, the device can recognize mushrooms ranging from 20 mm to 120 mm, defaulting to interpreting 5 different sizes. The device operates on a battery and can run for 4 hours on a single charge.
More interesting projects from MycoSense
In addition to the MycoSense Spotlight device for mushroom picking assistance, the startup is working on several other projects. One of these is an intelligent software system to aid in the early detection of diseases. Currently, it is a significant challenge for cultivators to recognize the symptoms of diseases occurring in mushroom cultivation. Unfortunately, often by the time symptoms appear, there is no opportunity to stop the infection. Early detection is therefore crucial.
MycoSense is also developing cultivation data processing software. The Harvest Manager is available as both a mobile and desktop application. The software, based on data collected during daily growing house visits and previous cultivation data, is capable of analysis and forecasting. It can estimate the expected yield for the next 7 days and the number of pickers required. Thanks to real-time operation, data from cultivation immediately available in a central database, which can be shared among multiple cultivation managers. With a constantly updated structured database, the company’s management, together with leaders, can plan the next steps online. Due to the rapid processing of data, cultivation cycles can be much more accurately planned. The software, with its advanced data analysis technology, can also help determine the further steps of the harvested mushrooms. With the Harvest Manager, tasks such as releasing items from the cold storage, selling, and logistics become simplified.
The future
The device is currently in operation on a few Swiss mushroom farms. But when asked, Stéphane Doutriaux, founder of MycoSense, said: “We have started shipping to customers in Europe this quarter. We are now taking orders for deployments in the 2nd half of 2024 and beyond.”
More information on the company’s projects is available on the MycoSense website.
