How Effective Is Mechanical Blueberry Harvesting? An Analysis of Its Practical Application Performance
How effective is mechanical blueberry harvesting? Please note that due to the lack of labor resources, mechanical harvesting is receiving increasing attention in blueberry production. The main principle of mechanical harvesting is shaking the fruit off the bush. A large mechanical harvester that includes a vibrator, fruit receiver and conveyor belt device can harvest more than 0.5 ha per hour...
How effective is mechanical blueberry harvesting? Please explain
Due to the lack of labor resources, mechanical harvesting is receiving increasing attention in blueberry production. The main principle of mechanical harvesting is shaking the fruit off the bush. A large mechanical harvester that includes a vibrator, fruit receiver and conveyor belt device can harvest more than 0.5 ha per hour, equivalent to the workload of 160 people. This greatly reduces costs. However, mechanical harvesting has several problems: first, yield loss; it is estimated that mechanical harvesting loses about 30% of the yield compared with manual harvesting; second, the fruit harvested mechanically must go through a grading and packaging process; and third, the initial investment is relatively large. In China, when small-scale, scattered farming by individual households is practiced, it is not suitable to adopt; but for large-area, intensive cultivation, mechanical harvesting should be considered.
Click to get more strawberry growing techniques
Click to get more fruit growing techniques