Abstract
Fruit cultivation requires many skills, which are difficult for new farmers to learn. Although the harvesting and sorting of fruit are essential tasks for new yuzu (Citrus junos) farmers, learning these tasks presents challenges, notably with respect to wounds caused by thorns during harvesting and the lack of teaching time for sorting fruit during the busy harvest season. Here, we visually assessed learning support points for these tasks and verified the effects of learning content at these points. First, we extracted 10 points related to harvesting, including “actions”, “decisions”, and “results”, and 6 points related to the sorting of fruit from videos, eye tracking data, and interviews with expert farmers, and used them to assess the work of intermediate or beginner farmers. As learning content, we prepared 21 quiz-type questions and a video for harvesting, and 528 questions and a video for sorting, which focused on decision points where there were differences between experts and intermediate or beginners. As a result of learning, inexperienced workers had a significant reduction in wounds caused by fruit shears and thorns during harvesting and a significant increase in the proportion of fruits sorted in a single inspection. Our findings reveal that using the learning content improved the learners’ knowledge of decisions in the harvesting and sorting of fruit.
