Ulrich Hartmond

Orange Removal with Trunk Shakers and Abscission Chemicals

Trunk shake-catch systems have been used commercially to a limited extent to mechanically harvest Florida oranges for processing for the past four seasons. In most cases, oranges left on the trees by the shakers and those missing the catchframes must be gleaned by hand harvesters. The cost of gleaning reduces or may eliminate the profit for the mechanical harvesting operation. During the past two seasons, abscission chemicals to reduce the detachment force of oranges have been tested to determine to what extent they increase the fruit removal efficiency of the shakers. This article discusses orange removal results with various chemicals. In general, removal efficiencies were increased 10 to 15 percentage points when orange detachment forces were reduced 50 to 80%.