Questions and Answers on Sweet Cherry Harvest Efficiency trials with Matthew Whiting, Luke Anderson and Suzanne Bishop.
Link to YouTube video: 3) Whiting Q&A
Text Transcript and Description of Visuals
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| In this second video we would like to address all the Q&A’s regarding the recent presentation by Matthew Whiting on harvest efficiency, and the first question is: When can we have commercially available harvesters for sweet cherries? | Title Slide: “Sweet cherry harvest efficiency trials”. Presenter information: “Matthew Whiting, Washington State University”. |
| So in terms of the of the mechanical harvest, the longer term strategy that I described with the fully mechanical harvest system is in advanced prototype stage. So really it would just require meeting with an equipment manufacturer and looking at the machine that’s been produced and has evolved over the last 20 years. The shorter term solution is the handheld mechanical shake-and-catch processes. We’ve had also advanced prototypes. Nothing is commercially available, but we don’t imagine it would be particularly difficult to put together these kinds of systems that we’ve been evaluating and basing our research upon. They’re fairly simple. It should be fairly inexpensive. We’ve done some large-scale tests that have shown improved fruit quality versus hand harvested, so we feel pretty confident even with the research prototypes that we’ve been using. So a handheld system could really could be in a very short-term solution. A longer-term prospect would be the would be the fully mechanical system. | Matthew Whiting appears on screen, standing in the row of a cherry orchard. |
| Can you comment on the fruit quality of mechanically harvested fruit? | |
| Well yeah, we’ve actually seen improved fruit quality. So I showed you that we’re able to harvest the fruit, in some cases, five to six times faster than picking by hand. It is stem-free cherries, which we’ve been working with for years in the processes of actually having those stored and packaged and marketed and consumer perception studies. Fruit quality, just as a summary of all the work that’s been done, fruit quality is improved even using our prototype shake-and-catch systems. We have no pitting. We have a good abscission zone and a good abscission scar. We have no tearing, no juice leakage. We have no problems with that, nor problems with any pathogen or fungal diseases in post-harvest. And I took a picture the other day actually at a local retail outlet of a bag of cherries with stems, and the stems were already browned and shriveled and they really looked bad. So you don’t have that issue. We’ve seen that the cherries last a lot longer than the stems, and so we could also take advantage of that simple fact. | |
| If you have a shake-and-catch that’s localized. You can like, put some kind of a tray or bag or something under here, and you can do each level and minimize damage. What if you have a vertical going up? Would you shake it from the bottom and have everything just come down? What effects have you seen there? | The camera shot changes to Suzanne Bishop walking down the row of a cherry orchard. She stops and gestures to the lower limbs of a cherry tree. Text on screen reads: “Suzanne Bishop, R&D Director, Allan Brothers Inc.”. |
| Yeah, so a system like this is with horizontal layers that are very accessible is ideal I think, just for the reason that you just said. You can do a localized shake, perhaps at this point, and if you apply just the right amount of energy, you’ll capture just this this portion of fruit. | Matthew Whiting walks into frame next to Suzanne Bishop. He gestures to the horizontal limbs of the cherry tree. |
| I’ve done a lot of work with– also with Dr. Karki presented earlier and other students–looking at the vibrational actuation. How much power to put in to release the fruit. Sweetheart’s not a good variety for stem-free cherries because it doesn’t release from the pedicel very well, but we could still, if we applied enough energy, shake all these fruit off, but it’d be a disaster. So now we know that we want just the right amount of energy applied to have a very small localized harvest, and when we do that it works really well with this system, but it also works equally well on vertical wood when you use just minimal energy in a small catching zone. | |
| So would you like go through like pieces? Like the top first and then the middle section? | Suzanne gestures to the higher horizontal branches on the cherry tree and then to the middle branches. |
| Actually on vertical wood, you would start from the bottom because nothing would drop below it, right? So you would just shake this portion and maybe another portion another meter or so above and towards the top. We had advanced prototypes that had long shafts actually and long catching frames that could all be done into a 12 foot or a 4 meter tree could all be done completely from the ground. | Matthew gestures to the bottom branches of the tree. |
| You could access those your top wire here easily. So we’re excited about the potential for that process and looking at various hurdles to the to the harvest and then to the production and processing and marketing. | Matthew points at the top wire of the trellis system, which is above the camera shot. |
| Well, definitely for us on the warehouse side, it’s a big struggle. We have these beautiful cherries, but the stems are brown so it’s not as good of a quality. Then, you know, the stem cutters and what if they’re getting chopped off in half? That decreases the value. So it’d be great just to eliminate that variable. | |
| Do you see any possibility of damage the tree in the long term? | A person off camera speaks, and Suzanne and Matthew turn to look at them. |
| No, we don’t. The first version of the fully mechanical harvest system that we got from an engineer from the USDA named Don Peterson years ago did damage trees or could damage trees because it used so much energy in the actuation. Since then, we’ve modified that, and we’ve learned that the best way to get the fruit to release is through a slow vibrational energy with a very short stroke. So it’s not a big shake, it’s a very small shake and a fine vibration. By limiting the amount of energy that goes into the system, you’re really only removing the fruit that are ready to be removed and will not be damaged. That was a simple lesson that we learned. Even with the earliest handheld shakers that you’d put on the branch, you’d apply full throttle, and you’d shake the fruit and they drop. And if a few didn’t drop, you’d stay there and keep shaking until they finally gave up and released from the stem. That’s where we sometimes saw damage. But with low energy, small areas of influence then we’re able to get just the fruit that are ready to release. | Matthew mimics the movement of shaking a tree limb with a handheld shaker. |
| If you’re interested in more information and things that we’re doing at Washington State University, my email has already been shared. Happy to connect with you and keep you informed with future programs as well. You can always check the WSU, treefruit.wsu.edu webpage as well for more information. Thanks everybody. | The camera shot changes to Matthew Whiting standing alone in the row of the cherry orchard. Text on screen shows contact information for organizers of the field day. |
