Abstract
The growth of the blueberry industry in the past three decades has been remarkably robust. However, a labor shortage for hand harvesting, increasingly higher labor costs, and low harvest efficiencies are becoming bottlenecks for sustainable development of the fresh market blueberry production. In this study, we evaluated semi-mechanical harvesting systems consisting of a harvest-aid platform with soft fruit catching surfaces that collected the fruit detached by portable, hand-held, pneumatic shakers. The softer fruit catching surfaces were not glued to the hard sub-surfaces of the harvest-aid platform, but suspended over them. Also, the ergonomic aspect of operating powered harvesting equipment was determined. The pneumatic shakers removed 3.5 to 15 times more fruit (g/min) than by hand. Soft fruit catching surfaces reduced impact force and bruise damage. Fruit firmness was higher in fruit harvested by hand compared to that by pneumatic shakers in some cultivars. The bruise area was less than 8% in fruit harvested by hand and with semi-mechanical harvesting system. The percentage of blue, packable fruit harvested by pneumatic shakers comprised as much as 90% of the total, but less than that of hand-harvested fruit. The ergonomic analysis by electromyography showed that muscle strain in the back, shoulders, and forearms was low in workers operating the light-weight, pneumatic shakers that were tethered to the platform with a tool balancer. The new harvesting method can reduce the labor requirement to about 100 hour/hectare/year and help to mitigate the rising labor cost and shortage of workers for harvesting fresh-market quality blueberries.
Highlights
The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrids) industry in the United States (U.S.), SouthAmerica, China, and elsewhere has experienced a phenomenal growth in the past three decades [1].Per capita consumption of blueberries during this period doubled as consumers have become moreAgronomy 2017, 7, 33; doi:10.3390/agronomy7020033 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomyAgronomy 2017, 7, 33 aware Agronomy of health benefits of blueberries
The pneumatic shakers removed as much as 6 times more fruit (g/min) than by hand in ‘Draper’
The results of this study clearly showed that harvesting blueberries with hand-held shakers and capturing detached fruit on softer surfaces was gentler than OTR harvesters and resulted in less bruise damage
Summary
The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrids) industry in the United States (U.S.), SouthAmerica, China, and elsewhere has experienced a phenomenal growth in the past three decades [1].Per capita consumption of blueberries during this period doubled as consumers have become moreAgronomy 2017, 7, 33; doi:10.3390/agronomy7020033 www.mdpi.com/journal/agronomyAgronomy 2017, 7, 33 aware Agronomy of health benefits of blueberries. The highbush blueberry (Vaccinium corymbosum hybrids) industry in the United States (U.S.), South. China, and elsewhere has experienced a phenomenal growth in the past three decades [1]. Per capita consumption of blueberries during this period doubled as consumers have become more. Agronomy 2017, 7, 33 aware Agronomy of health benefits of blueberries. In 2011, blueberry production in the U.S was 2312MT, about. In the U.S about 60% of production is packed for the fresh market, of which becomeismore of health benefits of blueberries. 2011, blueberry production the U.S. was and the majority still aware hand harvested [2]. Outside the U.S, of the blueberry is in hand harvested
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