Specialty Crop Growers’ Perspectives on Adopting New Technologies

Caplan, Shannon; Tilt, Bryan; Hoheisel, Gwen‐Alyn; Baugher, Tara Auxt

doi:10.21273/horttech.24.1.81

Cited by 20 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…While a lack of background in the subject matter area limited understanding of concepts during some of the interviews, it also allowed the researcher to ask descriptive follow-up questions of the interviewee that would have been deemed as unacceptable by someone with in-depth knowledge of the field of inquiry. This allowed for the responses to the semistructured interview guide to yield unanticipated, nuanced information that the researchers had not anticipated which could then be used to inform future research as suggested by Caplan, Tilt, Hoheisel, and Baugher (2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diffusing Water Conservation and Treatment Technologies to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

Lamm

Warner

Taylor

et al. 2017

JIAEE

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Nursery and greenhouse operations require significantly large amounts of water to maintain product quality and often use more than what is needed by the crop being grown. The nursery industry’s use of water is highly criticized and adds to arguments against agricultural water use with increasingly limited water resources available globally. The purpose of this study was to explore the barriers and motivators associated with nursery and greenhouse growers’ adoption of water conservation and treatment technologies. In-depth interviews were conducted with 24 operators across the U.S. to identify their perceptions of new water-saving technologies and treatments based on the five attributes of an innovation identified by Rogers (2003). The findings revealed growers are aware of water-saving technologies and the rate of adoption depends on a variety of factors including: perceived cost, lack of ability of their workforce to use the new technology due to its complexity, and belief that their product will be worth more if it is grown in an environmentally-friendly manner. Barriers to adoption included the high cost of replacing equipment, incompatibility with existing systems, and the perception that new technologies do not fit in with the traditional hands-on approach to horticulture. Suggested extension programs to reach growers include developing materials that highlight the economic benefit of adoption and cost recovery, YouTube videos that reduce issues with perceived complexity growers can use with their workers, and programs that emphasize how technology fits in with the culture of the horticulture industry.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diffusing Water Conservation and Treatment Technologies to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

Lamm

Warner

Taylor

et al. 2017

JIAEE

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“…However, growers considered some technologies to be either incompatible with their operation, or too expensive or complicated to use Lamm, Warner, Taylor, Martin, White, & Fisher, 2017). Caplan, Tilt, Hoheisel, and Baugher (2014) also applied characteristics of innovations in their qualitative study on grower use of harvesting and pest management technologies and reported that cost and equipment complexity were barriers to adoption. While costs have emerged as an important factor in adoption, we wanted to look beyond financial aspects to other external influences.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Both Lamm, Warner, Martin, et al (2017) and Lamm, Warner, Taylor, et al (2017) recommended quantitative analyses be conducted to further explore adoption processes among nursery and greenhouse growers. Caplan et al (2014) contended that research was needed to further explore the role Extension professionals can play to support the adoption process of nursery and greenhouse growers. Research on effectively engaging nursery and greenhouse growers is very limited.…”

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confidence: 99%

A New Perspective on Adoption: Delivering Water Conservation Extension Programming to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

Warner,

Lamm,

White

et al. 2020

JAE

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Extension professionals help important agricultural sectors across the country resolve challenges using science-based practices that enhance environmental and social wellbeing while supporting businesses. Nursery and greenhouse growers comprise one of the largest sectors of U.S. agriculture, and this group is challenged to conserve water without compromising their economic viability. While Extension professionals educate and support nursery and greenhouse growers, there is a deficiency of research on adoption processes within this sector. To better understand this important Extension audience, this research examined the influence of critical thinking and problem-solving style on perceived characteristics of water conservation technologies and in turn the perceived characteristics relationship with their implementation. A route to adoption was established to inform effective Extension activities that promote water conservation. Problem-solving style predicts trialability while critical thinking style predicts none of the five characteristics of innovations. Of the five characteristics of water conservation innovations, relative advantage, trialability, and observability play a role in nursery and greenhouse growers’ implementation, and implementation does influence adoption. When designing water conservation programs for nursery and greenhouse growers, Extension professionals should consider participants’ problem-solving style and incorporate strategies to increase trialability, relative advantage, and observability.

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“…Considering small fruit size and large number on a tree, cherry harvesting is labour intensive and time consuming. Due to shortage of skilled workers and increasing labour cost, harvest induced cost accounts for more than 50% of the annual production expenses for sweet cherry growers (Caplan, Tilt, Hoheisel, Baugher, 2014).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Analysis of shaking-induced cherry fruit motion and damage

Zhou

Karkee

et al. 2016

Biosystems Engineering

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High percentage of shaking-induced fruit damage is the major obstacle for mechanical harvesting of fresh-market sweet cherry. This study focused on the evaluation of the effect of vibration frequency on fruit motion, detaching time and damage during mechanical cherry harvesting with a shaker. A high-speed camera was used to capture the fruit trajectory on eighteen limbs excited at the frequencies of 10, 14 and 18 Hz. Fruit detaching time and number of fruit-to-fruit and fruit-to-limb impact were extracted from the high speed videos for determining the factors affecting fruit removal and damage. Results showed that he majority of the four identified motion patterns were tilting and beam-column, accounting for more than 70% of all patterns. Fruit detaching time was significantly affected by vibration frequency with fast detaching at high frequencies. Vibration frequency affected the overall fruit damage percentage substantially, with the lowest damage percentage of 47.1% in 14 Hz, which might be caused by high percentage of beam-column motion during vibration at the frequency. Meanwhile, 18 Hz vibration resulted in a higher percentage (35%) of unmarketable fruits than that of 10 Hz and 14

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Specialty Crop Growers’ Perspectives on Adopting New Technologies

Cited by 20 publications

References 11 publications

Diffusing Water Conservation and Treatment Technologies to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

Diffusing Water Conservation and Treatment Technologies to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

A New Perspective on Adoption: Delivering Water Conservation Extension Programming to Nursery and Greenhouse Growers

Analysis of shaking-induced cherry fruit motion and damage

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