Observing the Smartification of the Chinese Tea Industry: Intelligentization in Tea Cultivation
With the wave of technological advancements, many tea-related institutions, research organizations, and companies have actively embraced change. They leverage technology to empower the entire tea industry's value chain, continuously exploring innovations that infuse sustainable development into the tea industry. In a series of articles, we document the intelligentization explorations at various stages of tea cultivation in China.
The emergence of smart tea gardens has enabled precision and automation in tea garden management. By comprehensively sensing, managing, analyzing, and sharing data, these systems allow for the monitoring and management of tea plants throughout their entire growth cycle.
Currently, the construction of smart tea gardens primarily enhances management levels through the implementation of several intelligent control modules. These include the "Four Aspects" monitoring system, remote sensing and surveying systems, integrated water and fertilizer automatic irrigation systems, drone-based pest control technology, and intelligent tea-picking robots.
Tea Garden Intelligent "Four Aspects" Monitoring System: This system comprises soil moisture monitoring, surveillance, pest and disease monitoring, and meteorological monitoring within the tea garden. Using IoT sensors for real-time monitoring of the tea garden environment, coupled with big data analysis, it provides farmers with scientific planting recommendations.
Tea Garden Remote Sensing and Surveying System: Utilizing drones equipped with hyperspectral imagers and multispectral cameras, this system captures continuous spectral and image information of the tea garden's surface and attached objects. By describing the spectral characteristics of surface objects through remote sensing spectral curves, it identifies surface objects with diagnostic spectral features, enabling the monitoring of tea plant growth and pests.
Tea Garden Water and Fertilizer Integration System: This system employs IoT, computer, and wireless communication technologies to automatically monitor soil moisture and fertilization needs. It optimizes irrigation and fertilization, thereby controlling tea plant growth.
Tea Garden Drone-Based Pest Control Technology: This technology captures images of pests using high-definition cameras and employs AI algorithms for rapid identification and early warning. It provides tea farmers with timely and effective pest control measures while supporting environmentally friendly pest management.
Intelligent Tea-Picking Robots: Leveraging machine vision and AI algorithms, these robots can accurately identify the maturity and quality of tea leaves, enabling precise picking operations. They are capable of continuous operation in complex terrains and harsh weather conditions, and their flexible robotic arms minimize damage and contamination during the picking process.
In 2019, the Agricultural Robotics and Equipment Innovation Team at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University developed the world's first tea-picking robot. By 2024, the sixth-generation intelligent tea-picking robot, which has been significantly upgraded, boasts a 50% improvement in efficiency over the fifth generation. It is estimated that one robot can replace 1.5 human workers, capable of picking fresh leaves that can produce 750 g of dry tea in a single day.
In April 2023, the team led by Professor Wang Baijuan from Yunnan Agricultural University successfully completed the first phase of developing the world's first robot designed for tea leaf picking in high-altitude mountainous areas. The robot can identify tea leaves without requiring a network environment and features capabilities such as grading fresh leaves and identifying in low-light environments.