
Mechanical Harvester Could Revolutionize Citrus IndustryBy Doris Stanley March 13, 1998A new mechanical harvester developed by an
Agricultural Research Service engineer
may revolutionize the citrus industry by giving U.S. growers an edge on the
orange market and making them more competitive with Brazilian growers. Using 12-foot-diameter drums with nylon rods that shake and rotate 5 feet
into a tree's foliage, the machine can harvest a 90-pound field box of citrus
for 50 cents, compared with the $1.50 it now costs with hand labor. And it can
fill the 300 to 400 field boxes of fruit from each orchard acre 15 times faster
than hand laborers. Although most citrus is hand-harvested, trunk shakers--different from
foliage shakers--are beginning to be used even though they're effective only in
certain types of groves. A chemical must be sprayed on trees to loosen mature
fruit when the tree is shaken, but chemicals have not been approved for this
purpose. The new foliage shaker doesn't require any fruit-loosening chemicals.
It now costs Florida producers about as much to remove fruit from the tree
and deliver it to processors as it does to grow the fruit, so the industry wants
to lower harvesting costs. During peak season, Florida growers employ about
45,000 seasonal workers. Hand labor is expensive and may not always be
available. Florida's Department of Citrus has signed a cooperative research and
development agreement with ARS to use the new harvester, patterned after an
original design built at the ARS
Appalachian Fruit Research
Station in Kearneysville, W.Va. The new harvester was built by Blueberry
Equipment, Inc., South Haven, Mich., which licensed the original technology to
harvest fresh blueberries. The full story, in the March issue of ARS' Agricultural
Research magazine, also is on the World Wide Web at: http://www.ars.usda.gov/is/AR/archive/mar98/harv0398.htm Scientific contact: Donald L. Peterson, ARS
Appalachian Fruit Research
Station, Kearneysville, WV 25430-9425, phone (304) 725-3451, fax (304)
728-2340, [email protected]. U.S. Department of Agriculture | |