Considerations for Machine Harvesting Fresh-market Eastern Thornless Blackberries: Trellis Design, Cane Training Systems, and Mechanical Harvester Developments
| Autor: | Fumiomi Takeda, Donald L. Peterson |
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| Rok vydání: | 1999 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | HortTechnology. 9:16-21 |
| ISSN: | 1943-7714 1063-0198 |
| Popis: | There is increased interest in growing blackberries in the United States for the fresh fruit market. For fresh market blackberry production, >350 h/acre (900 h·ha-1) of work is required to hand pick blackberries over a season that lasts 5 weeks with harvest every 2 days. Existing bramble mechanical harvesters can detach fruit from plants trained on a vertically oriented I trellis and harvest more cheaply than when harvested by hand, but the harvested fruit does not have fresh-market quality. We developed a cane training and trellis system for semierect blackberries to orient canes horizontally with the fruit positioned below the canes. Also, we developed an over-the-row mechanical harvester that uses vibrating nylon rods on a drum to shake fruit from horizontally trained canes onto a moving fruit-catching surface directly under the canopy to minimize impact damage to fruit. A new trellis design, new cane training practices, and new harvesting technologies have allowed fruit to be removed efficiently and be acceptable for fresh-market sales. This production system has been evaluated economically and appears to be profitable. It could overcome the high cost of handpicking, which has limited the expansion of fresh-market blackberries. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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