Apple Bruising V. Apple Bruising Related to 

 Picking and Hauling Practices 



William J. Bramlage 



Department of Plant & Soil Sciences, University of Massachusetts 



Here we continue a series of articles on apple 

 bruising, reporting results from an on going study at 

 Michigan State University. The information contained 

 herein comes from a report presented at the 1989 Inter- 

 national Summer Meeting of the American and Cana- 

 dian Societies of Agricultural Engineers in Quebec, 

 Canada, June 25-28, 1989. The research was con- 

 ducted by C. L. Burton, G. K. Brown, W. L. Schulte 

 Pason, and E. J. Timm of USDA's Agricultural Re- 

 search Service and the MSU Agricultural Engineering 

 Department. 



In a previous article [Fruit Notes 54(2):3-5] we 

 showed that much bruising during apple harvesting 

 and handling is avoidable and that in commercial op- 

 erations, use of bin trailers reduced bruising during 

 transit. The authors recommended that bin trailers be 



equipped with soft tires and soft suspensions. Careful 

 forklift operation reduced bruising and long (rather 

 than short) lines on the fork lift also reduced bruising. 

 The study reported here attempted to identify and 

 quantify sources of bruising during bin-filling and 

 handling, and to determine if foam-plastic bin liners 

 would reduce bruising. Golden Delicious apples were 

 used in the study. 



Bin-Filling 



To study bin-filling operations, apple picking buck- 

 ets were emptied into an unpadded hardwood bin or 

 one with a 1/2-inch thick foam pad on the bottom. 

 Buckets were emptied either gently (approximating a 

 well-supervised picker) or roughly (approximating 



80 



fc* 



70- 



60- 



50 



CO 



Q. 



g 40 



.52 30 



E 

 m 



20- 



10- 



\ss/\ Bottom Layer 



I 1 Middle Layer 



t£S3 Top Layer 



^ 



^ 



'ZZX 



^ 



^ 



i 



M 



Esa 



Pad Ma Pad 



Front 



Pa* No Pa* 



Rear 



Pad, Ma Pod 

 Short Tines 



< Bin Carrier > 



Pad Ma Pad 



Long Tines 

 < Fork— Lifts > 



Pad Ma Pad 



X— Action 



Figure 1. Percent bruising incurred on apples at different positions in foam padded or unpadded bins 

 during orchard transportation. 



14 



Fruit Notes, Summer, 1990 



