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<pre>>We mechanically harvest at our ranch in
>Oroville and this form of harvesting is the savior of the world olive
>industry. Manual labor is scarce and unreliable and costly-there is no way
>around the mechanized harvest future contrary to romantic notions.
>Ken Stutz
Luckily there's still plently of manual labor at a managable price here, but
I've been trying to convince the family that it won't always be that way.
What equipment are you using for your harvest?

Norm

Norm Corley
Athens, Greece
http://www.geocities.com/NapaValley/7003 - Personal Page
http://radivision.hypermart.net - Business Page

"I didn't fight my way to the top of the food chain to be a vegetarian!"
</pre>
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<pre>DEAR FRIENDS

I AM FROM TURKEY. I HAVE OLIVE GROWS FOR ABOUT 850 TREES.

I WOULD LIKE THE GET THE ADDRESSES LIST OF THE MECHANICAL OLIVE
HARVESTING MACHINE MANUFACTURERS.
IF ANY ONE KNOWS. PLEASE SENMD ME
REGARDS.
OSMAN MENTESE
</pre>
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<pre>DEAR FRIENDS
I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVE THE NAME AND ADDRESES OF THE MANUFACTURER OF
THE MECHANICAl HARVESTING MACHINES FOR OLIVES.
IF ANY ONE KNOWS IT.PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
THANKS
SMAN MENTESE
osmen@superonline.com
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<pre>27th of April, 1999



Dear Mr. Mentese,


a leading Italian manufacturer of mechanical harvesting machines is the
following:


<paraindent><param>left</param>Verdegiglio Macchine Agricole s.r.l.

Via Baione, 271 (Zona industriale)

70043 Monopoli (Bari)

Italia

tel. 39 (080) 6901 760

39 (080) 6901 761

fax 39 (080) 6901 763

http://www.verdegiglio.com

e-mail: verdegiglio@mail.arcadiaonline.it

</paraindent>It is a private company run by the three nephews of the
founder, Mr. Sante Verdegiglio, Mr. Marcello Verdegiglio and Mr. Renato
Verdegiglio.


As we still pick all our olives by hand I have no direct experience with
shaking machines. Nevertheless, I hope that this address will be useful
to you.

Best wishes,


Michael Quick




At 14.08 20/04/99 +0300, you wrote:

>>>>

<excerpt><fontfamily><param>Arial</param><smaller>DEAR FRIENDS

I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVE THE NAME AND ADDRESES OF THE
MANUFACTURER OF THE MECHANICAl HARVESTING MACHINES FOR OLIVES.

IF ANY ONE KNOWS IT.PLEASE LET ME KNOW.

THANKS

OSMAN MENTESE

<<mailto:osmen@superonline.com>osmen@superonline.com

</smaller></fontfamily>

</excerpt><<<<<<<<







<paraindent><param>left</param><bold><bigger>Agricola Monterinaldi
S.r.l.

</bigger></bold></paraindent><paraindent><param>left,out,out</param>La
Pesanella, Lucarelli in Chianti

</paraindent><paraindent><param>left,out</param><bigger>53017 Radda in
Chianti (Siena)

Italy

<italic>phone </italic>+39 (0577) 733 533

<italic>fax </italic>+39 (0577) 733 609

</bigger><underline>http://www.monterinaldi.it

</underline></paraindent>

<paraindent><param>left</param>mquick@monterinaldi.it

</paraindent>
</pre>
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<pre>Hallo Mr Mentese,

a sister company of ours is producing mechanical harvesting mashines as
well as electrical ones. We are situated in Heraklion Crete. If you are
interested please contact us by sending an e-mail or a fax and we will send
you our brochures.

The company's name is :
M.KABITAKIS SA
Tel 0030 81 381309, 381310
Fax 0030 81 381311

----------
Á»ü (From): Osman Mentese <osmen@superonline.com>
«ñïò (To): OliveOil@onelist.com
È©ìá (Subject): [OliveOil] Mechanical Harvesting
Çì?ñïìçíßá (Date): Ôñßôç, 20 Á»ñéëßï? 1999 2:08 ìì

DEAR FRIENDS
I HAVE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD TO HAVE THE NAME AND ADDRESES OF THE
MANUFACTURER OF THE MECHANICAl HARVESTING MACHINES FOR OLIVES.
IF ANY ONE KNOWS IT.PLEASE LET ME KNOW.
THANKS
SMAN MENTESE
osmen@superonline.com
</pre>
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<pre>Sirs-
I too would be interested in receiving your brochure on a Mechanical
Harvester. We shake our trees on an 100 acre ranch in Oroville CA. Thanks.

Ken Stutz
58 Calvert Ct.
Piedmont, CA 94611
USA
</pre>
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<pre>Who is making the most headway in the mechanical harvesting of olives? I am in
central California and would like to get the contact info for any companies that
are working on olive harvesters.

Thanks
Tom Lindemann
</pre>
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<pre>Brian

The "pull meters" you refer to, I assume are some sort of dynamometer. Are they
a standard readily available device in Italy?

Semi mechanised harvesting systems such as air driven rakes and limb shakers are
ideal for harvesting juvenile trees. Another machine I saw recently, from
Greece, involved a long aluminium shaft, an electric motor on one end, and
oscillating fingers on the other. It achieves good fruit removal, was much
lighter than the rakes or motorised limb shaker, and did not take off as much
leaf as the rakes. It may not have been as fast as these other machines either,
but a field comparison would be interesting.

What we have to get a handle on though is fully mechanised harvesting systems,
which will achieve efficient harvest of fruit at optimal timing for oil quality.
Semi mechanised harvesting is likely to cost >$400 per tonne.

In Australia, many new olive growers have been sold the line, that if they just
train the trees to a single trunk, and prune to an open vase or monocone
(depending on variety and adviser), then mechanical harvesting will be straight
forward and efficient!! This is reflected in the harvest costings of some
investment schemes, research reports and scoping studies, where harvesting costs
of $200-300 per ha or $25-$35 per tonne are common place.

Promotional video clips for fully mechanised harvesting machines invariably
feature black fruit, fully ripe, low detachment force, and removal percentage is
good. This might be a reasonable strategy where the target market is general
supermarket and food service retail, where organoleptic quality is not so
important.

Of course producing very high quality EVOOs requires harvest before full
ripening, and some sacrifice of oil yield for the sake of quality. This also
means harvesting when detachment force is relatively high.

The discussions prompted by the problems with Manzanillo in Australia,
emphasised the need to stick with proven oil varieties, such as Frantoio,
Moraiolo, Maurino, Corregiola, Leccino, Picual, Koroneiki etc etc. All are
proven varieties for good yields of high quality oils. They are also all small
fruited varieties.

High detachment force and small fruit mass, are the enemies of efficient
mechanical harvesting. Conventional shakers, traditonally used in fruit such as
prunes, and various nut crops have proven to be relatively ineffective for
harvesting oil olives. I spoke to one harvester operater in South Australia who
said he could get 90% removal from a verdale, but less than 20% off a turning
colour frantoio type. The new generation shakers (vibrators), using
multidirectional, low amplitude, high frquency shaking actions seem to be more
effective, but we still have a lot to learn.

Apart from the obvious questions on efficiency, age of trees, cost and rates of
harvest. Another question I have relates to the effect of shaker harvesting on
yield the following year/s. Shaker/vibrator harvesters cause significant root
disturbance and stress to the tree above ground. This does not seem to effect
subsequent yields in other shaken crops. Is this the case with olives?

I don't want to be too much the kill joy here. I think we have the resource base
for an excellent industry. We also have a strong core of committed people who
understand the challenges ahead and there is a strong sense of optimism in the
industry that we can meet these challenges. What we don't have (and I have said
this before), is a means of generating the necessary research and development
funds. The obvious way to do this, is through a production levy. All major
horticultural and other agricultural industries in Australia have a production
levy to support organisational structures and fund R&D. If we don't establish a
levy system, we will continue to feel our way in the dark. If we do, we send a
clear message to Government and research funding organisations that we are
investing in the future of the industry, and they will find it mush easier to do
the same.

Regards

Damian







____________________Reply Separator____________________
Subject: [OliveOil] mechanical harvesting
Author: <OliveOil@egroups.com>
Date: 13/09/2000 12:49


Those who have read our book will know we are not fans of mechanical
harvesting with shakers but to be fair to them at the Loxton field day:

* Were "Pull" meters used to test whether the olives were ready to pick?

* Did the machines use an orbital or back and forth motion or both?

* Were the shaker heads rigid or flexibly mounted?

Cheers Brian Chatterton.




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]


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<pre>Damian ...

The pull meters being discussed are readily available in European olive
growing regions and we have one or two at Olives Australia. We have been
trying to import them from the manufacturers in Switzerland (and one other
country I can't recall) but no luck. They've not responded to any of our
occasional correspondence in the last couple of years! Maybe they are out
of business.

The tools are a simple little round pressure gauge (about 60mm across) with
a stainless steel arm (about 150mm long) coming out of it. The end of the
arm has a hook system which is slipped over the end of the olive where its
stem joins the tree and then pressure is placed on the arm to try and pull
the fruit off. As the pressure increases the gauge goes up and when the
fruit finally comes off the gauge remains at its highest point. That figure
is recorded. It is then reset and another olive is tested.

It is generally done on 20 or more olives at various stages on the tree and
the average FRF is then calculated. The results are called the "Fruit
Removal Force" (FRF). I have seen some papers on research done with these
tools in the past but I can't recall where at this stage. I've not seen
anything that lists a variety by variety table of FRF's for various stages
of ripeness.

Sorry I can't be of more help at this stage. I'm sure that there would be a
similar tool used in other horticultural industries in Australia already.

Kind regards,
Julian Archer
Olives Australia
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<pre>Damian writes:

> In Australia, many new olive growers have been sold the line, that if they
just
> train the trees to a single trunk, and prune to an open vase or monocone
> (depending on variety and adviser), then mechanical harvesting will be
straight
> forward and efficient!! This is reflected in the harvest costings of some
> investment schemes, research reports and scoping studies, where harvesting
costs
> of $200-300 per ha or $25-$35 per tonne are common place.

Well, I tend to agree with his cautious approach!

Nor would I like to be Kiljoy, but if anyone can tell me of established
orchards of Frantoio, Leccino, etc. regularly being successfully
mechanically harvested at the quarter- to halfripe stage, I'd very much like
to hear from them. It's very easy to make all sorts of projections in glossy
handouts, but how much fruit has actually successfully been harvested at $25
per tonne?!

I've seen many hand-held or tractor-mounted Heath-Robinson arrangements in
Europe, and some of them do work acceptably for large-fruited, fully ripe
cultivars (or those with unusually low FRF's), but I've yet to see something
upon which I'll confidently pin my hopes for the type of trees we have.
Invariably a very substantial proportion of fruit has to be hand-harvested
anyway. I do better by low-flying my chopper over the orchards!

So, for the forseeable future, we're doing everything by hand, as we have
been doing on our farms since 1925 (and using it as a marketing tool!).

Most of the development work on large mechanical harvesters (orbital
shakers) has probably taken place in California. I recall that the OMC
Company over there has had these man-sized shakers around for decades (also
used for harvesting various nuts, like pecans). Maybe Steve Sibbitt can
inform us on the current status of mechanical harvesting of olives in the
States, although I don't know if they've had much experience in harvesting
small-fruited oil cultivars. Probably only the larger-fruited Mission &
Manzanilla.

For really successful full mechanical harvesting, one might eventually have
to follow the route of high-density dwarfed trees planted in the form of
narrow hedgerows, and harvested by a straddling-type machine, a-la the
grape, coffee and berry harvesters of the likes of Braud, Korovan, etc.
However, this will probably require more than just compatible dwarfing
rootstocks for existing cultivars. And it will no doubt bring along a whole
new set of problems. By nature, the olive tree prefers as much space and
sunshine as possible, so as to reduce too much vegetative and upright
growth, and to encourage yields of quality fruit. High-density plantings do
not promote this. Brian will probably be able to tell us if they've been
successful with this concept in Italy. Or maybe we'll learn something at
Bari.

O.K. So shoot me down!

Regards,

Guido
</pre>
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