MECHANICAL HARVESTING OF BLUEBERRIES 



William J. Lord 

 Department of Plant and Soil Sciences 



The followin-r is an article taken from Agricultural Research Volume 

 12, No. 8, February, 196^1 : 



"Some agricultural leaders predict that fruit crops not harvested 

 mechanically will someday be of minor importance, grown only as 

 specialty items. 



ARS and State agricultural engineers are working to prevent this 

 from happening with blueberries. In cooperative research at Mich- 

 igan State University, East Lansing, ARS engineers G. E. Monroe 

 and J. H. Levin have developed an experimental machine that will 

 harvest cultivated blueberries at less that 1 cent a pound for labor. 



Three men and a harvester that incorporates the principles of the 

 experimental unit should be able to do the work of 120 men harvest- 

 ing by hand. One man would drive the machine while two handle ber- 

 ries. 



The experimental unit consists of two rotating spindles, mounted 

 vertically on a steel frame, that straddle a row of blueberry bushes. 

 Each spindle has 160 vibrating 'fingers'. 



As the unit moves down a row, the spindles rotate like giant turn- 

 stiles, moving the vibrating fingers in and out of the bushes. 

 Mature blueberries are shaken off the plants and caught in wooden 

 boxes carried at the base of the machine. 



Blueberries ripen over a 4 to 6 week period and three harvests are 

 usually necessary to get most of the fruit. Because of the extended 

 harvest season, hand pickers usually make only one or two harvests, 

 then move on to other crops. As a result, tons of fruit often go 

 unharvested. The new harvester should eliminate this problem and 

 thus enable growers to market a far larger crop of cultivated blue- 

 berries . 



Experience hand pickers, who earn about 8 cents a pound, harvest 

 less than half an acre of blueberries in 8 hours. In contrast, the 

 machine can harvest more than half an acre in only 1 hour. 



The development of the experimental machine is another step toward 

 mechanization of fruit harvesting. In 1958, Levin and two other 

 ARS engineers at Michigan, S. L. Hedden and H. P. Gaston, developed 

 a hand-held, electrically operated vibrator and catching frame that 

 cut the cost of harvesting blueberries to 3 . 5 cents a pound. 



Last summer, the hand-held equipment was used to harvest about 3 5 

 percent of Michigan's blueberry crop and 20 percent of the New 

 Jersey crop. These two States produce about 70 percent of all U.S. 

 cultivated blueberries." 



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