Case Study: San Jose State University achieves 100% increase in fruit collection and halves tree-mapping time with Trimble's Urban Forestry geospatial solution

San Jose Battles Food Insecurity with Integrated Geospatial Technologies

San Jose State University teamed with local nonprofit Garden to Table and Trimble to tackle food insecurity in San Jose by harvesting surplus fruit from private yards. The project faced wasted harvests and an inefficient, error-prone pen-and-paper mapping process that limited volunteer productivity and the ability to target high-yield areas.

The team deployed an integrated geospatial solution—Trimble Juno handhelds with a mobile GIS, Cengea Forest back-office tools, and eCognition/LiDAR canopy analysis—to digitize field data, prioritize productive trees, and plan pruning and new plantings. Efficiency and accuracy improved immediately: volunteers mapped 1,400 trees in roughly 160 hours (versus 930 trees in 300+ hours previously), cataloging time was halved, and the program projected a 100% increase in fruit (about 25,000 lbs) for the following year.

San Jose State University

Hilary Nixon

Associate Professor