Cost effectiveness of worker platforms and harvesting systems relative to conventional, labour intensive farming practise

Farmers are experiencing a cost-price squeeze. Labour is the single biggest on-farm expense item.  The future availability of labor is a further concern. The aim of the study was to determine how the use of harvesting systems and platforms could decrease input costs and increase profitability for SA deciduous fruit producers. We wanted to determine the realistic potential of these machines for various orchard and management practices and identify changes needed to facilitate automation in the orchard.

The impact of harvesting systems and laborer platforms on fruit quality were assessed when harvesting, as well as laborer productivity when performing orchard actions requiring the use of ladders. Harvesting systems and laborer platforms were compared to conventional labor practices. Trials were done on stone and pome fruit farms throughout the Western Cape.

Harvesting systems showed potential to decrease bruising on hardy apple cultivars, but since conventional teams incur little bruising on these cultivars, the scope of improvement is small. Similar or even higher injury levels were obtained on more sensitive cultivars despite conventional teams also incurring higher injury levels on these cultivars, leaving much room for improvement.

Conventional teams achieve very high picking productivity for hardy cultivars whereas outputs are lower for sensitive cultivars. Harvesting systems reached an upper limit of 150 kg per picker per hour when strip picking, regardless of cultivar hardiness, due to a misalignment between orchard and machine design that result in a very inefficient picking action. The number of picking cycles that can be completed is limited, which in turn limits the weight of fruit that can be picked in that time. Furthermore, factors such as tree size, shape and uniformity, fruit distribution on the tree, fruit size and quality, orchard floor condition and aspect, labor team dynamics, harvesting incentives, bin condition, operational system employed and harvest logistics all affected the overall productivity and efficiency of the harvesting systems.

Laborer platform was substantially increased the productivity of summer pruning compared to laborers on ladders. Dormant pruning and fruit thinning with laborer platforms also showed productivity gains, but to smaller extent depending on the pruning/ thinning strategy employed and tree architecture. In general, narrower and younger trees showed larger productivity gains.