Blueberry Machine Harvesting
March 07, 2013
The best blueberries are picked by hand. The not so good ones are harvested by machine and usually made into juice or jam. While the machine is able to pick more and at a faster speed than humans, it loses lots of blueberries in the process. To minimise wastage, nets are first laid on the ground under the trees to collect any berries that fall off when the machine moves through the trees.
First, we have to crawl several hundred metres to peg the nets together. After the machine is done with a row, we have to lift the nets up and tilt the berries out into trays. Lastly, crawl several hundred metres again to remove all the pegs T_T It's tiring and we got thirsty...so we pinched blueberries off the trees while crawling hehe!
The center of the machine works like a big brush, "sweeping" berries off the trees and dispensing them through the metal chutes.
One man will stand on each side of the machine to stack away the trays when they are filled.
Pulling and keeping away the nets
Machine harvested blueberries are loaded onto this belt and our job is to remove as many leaves, sticks or stones as we can. We swept the littered floor and called it a day! Time to cook and shower~
First, we have to crawl several hundred metres to peg the nets together. After the machine is done with a row, we have to lift the nets up and tilt the berries out into trays. Lastly, crawl several hundred metres again to remove all the pegs T_T It's tiring and we got thirsty...so we pinched blueberries off the trees while crawling hehe!
The center of the machine works like a big brush, "sweeping" berries off the trees and dispensing them through the metal chutes.
One man will stand on each side of the machine to stack away the trays when they are filled.
Pulling and keeping away the nets
Machine harvested blueberries are loaded onto this belt and our job is to remove as many leaves, sticks or stones as we can. We swept the littered floor and called it a day! Time to cook and shower~
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