Archive for year: 2021

Having nurtured high quality fruit throughout the season, we have always felt a little reticent to admit that brutally mechanically harvesting off the orchard floor was simply down to cost and convenience. Having reflected that our customers deserve better value from their fruit, we have invested in a “Shake and Catch” harvester to deliver this. It will take a while to adapt some of our tree configurations but it is well suited to agroforestry and our transition towards less intensive top fruit production. We hope to harvest Apples, Pears and Cherries. Effectively the harvester operates by unfurling a giant “sail” beneath the canopy, a large gripper then clamps onto the trunk and shakes the fruit off. This drops onto the canopy which then retracts to place the fruit onto an unloading belt. As this fills the bin or bulk bag, a giant fan blows leaves from the sample.