Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/418083
www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER DECEMBER 2014 59 Both machines can adapt to orchard conditions. At Rennhack's, the trees were short. Workers picked almost all from the ground, and the machine moved at a good pace, with only two on platforms picking tops. Rennhack had a large crew of pickers that day, 11, and the machine had to hustle to keep pace. But the machine can serve a large crew. At Cherry Bay, the trees were much taller. Workers had already picked from the ground all the apples they could handily reach, and the DBR work- ers were picking the tops above seven feet only. This procedure assures there is no machine contact with apples on the lower limbs. "I'm satisfied we made a good decision," Rennhack said. "I like the sim- plicity of the Huron machine. We bought it half to use for harvesting and half for other platform work." While the Waflers are using several machines in their own orchards, as far as he knows he was the first to order the machine. "There is a learning process, and we are in our first year," he said. He found the machine tended to pace the workers, speeding up slower work- ers and slowing down faster ones. There are some tricks in filling the boxes evenly, getting a balance between workers on the ground and workers on the platform. In one block with bitterpit, Rennhack used one of the five boxes for lower quality fruit, using the center box as a juice box and rigging up a 6-inch PVC pipe so workers on the platform could drop poor quality apples in it and the apples would roll to the center box. Rennhack has 75 acres of apples now, but only a quarter of them work well with the machine. It works best on tall spindle or slender spindle trees and less well on vertical axe, he said, and he's moving toward the tall spindle design. At Cherry Bay "What I really like about the DBR is getting the weight off the picker," Mark Miezio said, meaning the worker does one thing—pick—and there is no car- rying a bag of apples. "There's no turning, no emptying the bag." This also contributes to a team approach to picking, he said, since higher skilled, stronger workers don't have as much advantage. One of his crews is made up of two young workers, two elderly workers, and a small-statured woman. "Everybody was really happy," he said. "The men on the ground picking liked that, since they didn't have to move ladders, and the machine guys liked it, too," he said. "We're mostly cherry growers," he added. "We long ago embraced machine harvest technology. It fits our mindset to harvest apples this way." Another aspect of the DBR, he said, is that the fruit is singulated. It moves one at a time through the tube. The next feasible step could be optical or laser sorting right in the orchard, Miezio says. With both machines, they work best with fruiting walls. Walter Wafler said the design should allow pickers to reach 2.5 feet to the center of the tree. • The DBR Concepts Conveyor, designed by Mike Rasch, Phil Brown, and Chuck Dietrich, has moveable platforms from which workers pick apples into receptables that funnel them into vacuum hoses for transport to a single bin at the rear.