Issue link: http://read.dmtmag.com/i/76198
Chris Hendrickson, technician for Oxbo, looks on as pickers test the machine at a Stemilt orchard in Quincy, Washington. The two picking platforms on the machine can be hydraulically raised or lowered to adjust the area of the canopy within reach of the upper pickers. READY TO GO sk Vince Bryan III what increase in picking efficiency apple growers can expect from using the Picker Technologies mobile harvest system, and he'll say it depends. It depends on how fast the picking crew can pick, because the machine can go faster than they can. "When people ask me, 'What are our productivity aims?' I always turn it Adopting new harvest technology should help growers to address labor shortages and to remain competitive. by Geraldine Warner around and say, 'How fast can your pickers pick? People are the limiting factor.'" Looking at a return-on-investment analysis of the technology, there's not just one big thing that returns money to the grower, he explained. Bryan, chief executive officer of Picker Technologies, has compiled a list of almost 50 ways that the system can benefit the grower in the areas of added value, productivity, fruit quality, and worker safety, compared to using ladders or platforms. "We have made a machine that can go faster than the pickers can sus- tain their picking. The problem is not the machine. The industry has not yet recognized that where you get the pro- ductivity gain is in training your teams to work with the machine, and—depending upon the fruit varieties you're growing, the orchard configuration, and the yield— there are subtle things you can do that have a dramatic impact on the productiv- ity." P An important factor is fruit size. Though growers refer to yields in terms of bins, a bin might contain anywhere from 1,500 large apples to 3,000 small ones, so the smaller apples could take twice as long to pick. Growers should be thinking in terms of apples per minute sustained (APMS) rather than bins, Bryan said. Picker Technologies sought the advice of growers in designing the harvest system and has come very close to delivering on everything they asked for, Bryan said. The focus was on addressing all the aspects that take away from the time the workers spend actually picking, includ- ing climbing up and down ladders. Prototypes have been continuously tested since 2008 Bryan said it's now up to the growers to run with it. The company has invested $10 million in the project, and is handing it over to its partner, the equipment man- ufacturer Oxbo, which is ready to take orders for commer- cial models. So far, there have been no takers, much to Bryan's surprise and frustration. Eye opener "In the last year, I've had an opportunity to travel and icker Technologies' self-pro- pelled harvest system has adjustable platforms at the front where two pickers can stand to pick from the tops of the trees while two more pickers go down the row in front of the machine on foot. Work- ers place the apples into pneumatic tubes that carry the fruit up to an electronic sorter at the top. The fruit then goes into either a fresh or cull bin, to eliminate the need to take culls to the warehouse, and elec- tronic data on the quality and size of the fruit can be accessed immedi- ately by the grower and the packing house. At other times of year, the system in both apples and citrus. A couple of final changes were made during the past year. One modification allows the picking platforms to be lowered to just two feet above the ground for working in young orchards or in those where the crop is mainly in the bottom of the trees. Another change improves the navigation of the system around large trees that don't form a fruiting wall. 14 AUGUST 2012 GOOD FRUIT GROWER can be used to carry workers doing tasks other than picking. talk to a lot of people around the world," he said. "It's been an eye opener. The startling thing to me is that we have here, in the United States, an attitude that we're leading the world in agriculture. We are blessed with our soils and climate and locations, and all of those things, but we're not leading the world in the technology to bring this for- ward. In fact, we're last, and we've gotten away with it because of the bounty that we harvest." With looming labor shortages in the Pacific Northwest, now is the time for growers to seriously consider buying a harvesting system and to figure out how to maximize the use of it to get the fastest possible return on investment, he said. Changes to immigration laws are not going to solve the lack of labor, even if they happen. The solution, he believes, is to create a work environment where pickers don't need to be athletes who have to climb up and down ladders carrying 60 pounds of fruit, getting tired and slow as the day goes by. The harvest system increases the potential labor pool because the work becomes less demanding. "It doesn't need to be my machine," he stressed. In fact, Bryan and the developers of the DBR harvesting system in Michigan have discussed the possibility of working together. While growers might think competition is beneficial and might help keep pricing low, Bryan said the opposite is true. www.goodfruit.com Harvester is photo by geraldine warner