Florida orange juice is getting a taste of AI.
With the Sunshine State's $9 billion annual citrus crops plagued by a fruit-souring disease, researchers and businesses are tapping AI to help rescue the nation's largest producer of orange juice.
University of Florida researchers are developing AI applications for agriculture. And the technology - computer vision for smart sprayers - is now being licensed and deployed in pilot tests by CCI, an agricultural equipment company.
The efforts promise to help farmers combat what's known as citrus greening, the disease brought on by bacteria from the Asian citrus psyllid insect hitting farms worldwide.
Citrus greening causes patchy leaves and green fruit and can quickly decimate orchards.
The agricultural equipment supplier has seen farmers lose one-third of the orchard acreage in Florida from the onslaught of citrus greening.
It's having a huge impact on the state of Florida, California, Brazil, China, Mexico - the entire world is battling a citrus crisis, said Yiannis Ampatzidis, assistant professor at UF's Department of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
Fertilizing Precision Agriculture Ampatzidis works with a team of researchers focused on automation in agriculture. They develop AI applications to forecast crop yields and reduce pesticide use. The team's image recognition models are run on the Jetson AI platform in the field for inference.
The goal is to use Jetson Xavier to detect the size of the tree and the leaf density to instantly optimize the flow of the nozzles on sprayers for farming, said Ampatzidis. It also allows us to count fruit density, predict yield, and study water usage and pH levels.
The growing popularity of organic produce and the adoption of more sustainable farming practices have drawn a field of startups plowing AI for benefits to businesses and the planet. John Deere-owned Blue River, FarmWise, SeeTree and Smart Ag are just some of the agriculture companies adopting NVIDIA GPUs for training and inference.
Like many, UF and CCI are developing applications for deployment on the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform. And UF has wider ambitions for fostering AI development that benefits the state
Last July, UF and NVIDIA hatched plans to build one of the world's fastest AI supercomputers in academia, delivering 700 petaflops of processing power. Built with NVIDIA DGX systems and NVIDIA Mellanox networking, HiPerGator AI is now online to power UF's precision agriculture research. The new supercomputer was made possible by a $25 million donation from alumnus and NVIDIA founder Chris Malachowsky and $25 million in hardware, software, training and services from NVIDIA.
UF is a member of the NVIDIA Applied Research Accelerator Program, which supports applied research in coordination with businesses relying on NVIDIA platforms for GPU-accelerated application deployments.
Deploying Robotic Sprayers Citrus greening has required farmers to act quickly to remove diseased trees to prevent its advances. Many orchards now have gaps in their rows of trees. As a result, conventional sprayers that apply agrochemicals uniformly along entire rows will often overspray, wasting resources and creating unnecessary environmental contamination.
UF researchers developed a sensor system of lidar and cameras for sprayers used in orchards. These sensors feed into the NVIDIA Jetson AGX Xavier, which can process split-second inference on whether the sprayer is facing a tree to spray or not, enabling autonomous spraying.
The system can adjust in real time to turn off or on the application of crop protection products or fertilizers as well as adjust the amount sprayed based on the plant's size, said Kieth Hollingsworth, a CCI sales specialist.
It cuts down on spraying waste overspray and on wasted material that ultimately gets washed into the groundwater. We can also predict yield based on the oranges we see on the tree, said Hollingsworth.
Commercializing AgTech AI CCI began working with UF eight years ago. In the past couple of years, the company has been working with the university to upgrade its infrared laser-based spraying system to one with AI.
And customers are coming to CCI for novel ways to attack the problem, said Hollingsworth.
Working with NVIDIA's Applied Research Accelerator Program, CCI has gotten a boost with technical guidance on Jetson Xavier that has sped its development.
Citrus industry veteran Hollingsworth says AI is a useful tool in the field to wield against the crop disease that has taken some of the sweetness out of orange juice over the years.
People have no idea how complex of a crop oranges are to grow and what it takes to produce and squeeze the juice that goes into a glass of orange juice, said Hollingsworth.
Academic researchers can apply now for the Applied Research Accelerator Program.
Photo credit: Samuel Branch on Unsplash
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
08/05/2026
For the second straight year, Miri Technologies Inc. has been honored with a pair of coveted awards at the broadcast, media and entertainment industry's pre...
08/05/2026
Nine Alumni Nominated for Tony Awards More than 20 alumni contributed to this year's Tony-nominated productions.
May 7, 2026
By
Tori Donahue
Boston Co...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
08/05/2026
Liberty University on why broadcast technology isn't just a technical invest...
08/05/2026
COW Jobs: UGC, On-Camera Video Content
Brie Clayton May 7, 2026
0 Comments
UGC, On-Camera Video Content
April 17, 2026Documentary Editor - US,......
07/05/2026
Journalists reporting on Sudan are working in one of the most complex and fast-m...
07/05/2026
Multi-year partnership positions Victory+ as a free home for Dallas Cowboys orig...
07/05/2026
From sideline reporting to directing and producing, the talented sophomore is building a well-rounded foundation for a career in live sports production
In the ...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital has received two Future Best of Show awards at NAB Show 2026. The COBALT blueCORE platform was recognized by TV Tech, and the COBALT PACIFIC ULL-...
07/05/2026
ESPN analyst Mina Kimes will host the televised semifinals and finals of the 202...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI, the global film streaming platform, has selected Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner. Bitmovin's encoding infrastru...
07/05/2026
NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises and the U.S. Soccer Federation have announced...
07/05/2026
Angel City Football Club (ACFC) and Victory have announced a regional broadcast partnership bringing live match coverage to fans across the greater Los Angeles...
07/05/2026
Spiideo has announced the launch of AI Highlights inside Spiideo Play, its automated sports production platform. AI Highlights combines video, event data, audio...
07/05/2026
Leostream Corporation has announced a unified remote access ecosystem for high-p...
07/05/2026
The Atlanta Dream has partnered with Victory to stream all locally broadcast Dream games for free, expanding the team's digital distribution strategy and g...
07/05/2026
Riedel Communications has announced the appointment of Marc Engroff as Chief Fin...
07/05/2026
SES and ARD, Germany's largest public broadcasting network, have announced a long-term extension of their satellite distribution partnership through 2039. U...
07/05/2026
UpLight Technologies delivers a flexible video and lighting system for a new televised sportLaunching the Pro Cheer League required more than creating a compell...
07/05/2026
Full Day Productions and GSE Worldwide have announced Spikes Under the Lights, a...
07/05/2026
Seit dem Start im Jahr 2023 hat DJ (Beta) das personalisierte H rerlebnis von 94...
07/05/2026
Da quando stata presentata nel 2023, DJ (beta) ha aiutato a definire un'esperienza d'ascolto pi personalizzata per 94 milioni di utenti Spotify Premi...
07/05/2026
Since launching in 2023, DJ (beta) has helped shape a more personalized listenin...
07/05/2026
Desde o lan amento em 2023, o DJ (beta) j ajudou a deixar a experi ncia de ouvi...
07/05/2026
From our earliest days, Spotify has been built on a simple principle: Great audio should be easy to reach. It's what's driven us to expand from music to...
07/05/2026
Asian and Pacific Islander artists continue to shape the global soundscape, pushing creative boundaries and connecting with fans worldwide. This Asian & Pacific...
07/05/2026
Company announce long-requested choir instrument
In the latest expansion of their Symphonic Elements series, UJAM have introduced an all-new vocal instrumen...
07/05/2026
Modular-inspired sound generation with digital control
Buchla have introduced Ziggy, a new compact synthesizer built around the company's complex oscill...
07/05/2026
Combines analogue voices with digital synthesis and sequencing
Polyend have announced Drums, a new hybrid analogue and digital drum machine that combines sy...
07/05/2026
Control surface now officially supports four DAWs
When Nektar launched the Panorama CS12 control surface, it worked exclusively with Apple's Logic Pro, ...
07/05/2026
In the first quarter 2026, SGL Carbon generated consolidated sales of 184.5 million, which was 49.8 million, or 21.3%, lower than in the prior year (Q1 2025: ...
07/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz and Greenerwave achieve precise and fast ESA antenna characteriz...
07/05/2026
Two multi-role L3Harris products - the Red Wolf launched effects vehicle and SK...
07/05/2026
L3Harris will be developing key features of a secure and resilient digital infra...
07/05/2026
Alysa Liu and Shohei Ohtani Help Drive Viewership as 91 of the Top 100 Broadcast...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
07/05/2026
Cobalt Digital Wins Two Future Best of Show Awards at 2026 NAB Show
Manufacturer Recognized by TV Tech and TVBEurope for Innovation in signal processing
Cobal...
07/05/2026
Software and hardware platforms, AI power and user-friendliness on show...
07/05/2026
Intinor will demonstrate its latest technical enhancements for the Direkt series at BroadcastAsia 2026. With a continued focus on reliable contribution and remo...
07/05/2026
Bitmovin has announced that MUBI has chosen Bitmovin as its cloud VOD encoding partner, replacing MUBI's legacy on premises encoding setup to improve scalab...
07/05/2026
Meet Graduates from Berklees Class of 2026 Members of this years graduating class reflect on their proudest moments at Berklee and look ahead to whats next.
...
07/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
Florida orange juice is getting a taste of AI.
