01/29/07 Automating Cherries (Part 2)

Automating Cherries (Part 2). I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Bringing automation to a cherry orchard is a lot more than just developing a machine to pick cherries. According to WSU's Dr. Matt Whiting those issues go beyond the machine and structure of the orchard. WHITING: We are also looking at the fruit storability, the shelf life of cherries that don't have a stem. This harvest system leaves the fruit stems on the tree and just takes the fruit. So we've been looking at what impact that would have on how long we can ship or how long we can store those cherries. And then the final component we're interested in is how do consumers respond to stem free cherries. According to Whiting, this small question can have a major impact on the marketability of the fruit. WHITING: Are they willing to accept that product, it's not radically different but anytime you create a new product it's important to understand how it's going to be received at retail. Bottom line&is it worth it? WHITING: Oh the efficiency numbers are very compelling in fact we have seen a  it sounds like too much but it's a 50-fold improvement in individual productivity if you compare what one person could harvest by hand into a picking bucket versus what one person could harvest by operating the mechanical harvester. There's no doubt that for the future of the tree fruit industry any ways that we can incorporate automation, mechanization are going to be critical to the continued success of the future. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.