To build a “hand” for a robot apple picker, Joe Davidson first had to learn how to pick apples. After all, he was an engineer, not a farmer. “Picking apples seems like a very simple thing to do,” ...

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — Harvesting Washington state’s vast fruit orchards each year requires thousands of farmworkers, and many of them work illegally in the United States. That system eventually could ...

Which fruit picker is best? If you have ever wondered how your apples, pears and walnuts get to the market from the tops of the tallest trees, the answer is simple: a fruit picker. A fruit picker ...

Tomato greenhouses are becoming test beds for a new kind of farm worker, one that does not just grab every red fruit in sight but pauses to decide which individual tomato is worth picking. Instead of ...