Harvesting blueberries

Blueberries are one of very few fruits native to North America, which continues to be the largest producer of them in the world. They should harvest when they are fully colored and handling should be minimized as they are very delicate and damage easily and the bloom on the fruit surface can be destroyed.

The berries are very small and have to be picked by hand and hand harvesting of highbush blueberries is labor intensive and requires as many as 1150 hours of labor per hectare.

To get the highest quality berries, harvest 4 to 6 days after the berry turns completely blue. If picked earlier, the berries will not be as large and the flavor will not fully developed.

Over the row, self-propelled vibrating machines have been developed for harvesting   blueberries. The use of mechanical vibratos nearly triples worker productivity and reduced harvesting cost by 55%.

Even though the picking cost is lower for mechanically harvested fruit, more berries are picked per hectare by hand and they have a higher value.

Harvesting blueberries, low bush blueberries like there are in Maine, was accomplished using a tool called a rake. A rake is an odd shaped tool that has a handle. Low bush blueberries require the harvester to get drown to ground level.

Mixtures of soft ripe and hard ripe fruits should be avoided as the over-ripe ones can speed deterioration.
Harvesting blueberries

Wheat harvesting

The common types of wheat grown in the United States are spring wheat, planted in the spring for fall harvest and winter wheat, planted in the fall for spring harvest.

Many years ago, the common method of harvesting grains was the binder, which may possibly still be used on some small farms.

Harvesting wheat refers to the activities performed to obtain the cereal kernels of the plant for grain or the entire plant for forage or silage uses, These activities are accomplished by machines that cut, thresh, screen, clean, bind, pick and shell the crops in the field.

Binders have been replaced nearly everywhere by combines, large and small. These machines cut and thresh the crop and are usually self-propelled. Spring wheat may be windrowed or swathed before threshing.

Harvesting technologies normally remove material larger than the grain such as plant parts and material significantly smaller like sand and dirt.

The grain is stored in the harvest machine while the remainder of the plant is discharged back onto the field.

After combining, most spring and winter is either stored in the farms for a time or promptly taken by truck to local elevators where it is loaded on railway cars and carried to terminal markets.

Wheat harvesting

Postharvest Technology of Rice: Harvesting and Threshing

Postharvest Technology of Rice: Harvesting and Threshing
When the rice grain is harvested, it is unusable as human food until the inedible hull is removed. Since the grain is usually consumed as white rice, the bran layer must also be removed (through a process called polishing or milling).

Thus, the normal sequence in the handling of a rice crop after it matures is harvesting, cleaning, drying storage, milling and distribution to the market (or retention for farm family consumption).

Parboiling, if done, occurs sometime before milling.

The chief consideration in harvesting is the degree of maturity of the grain, which is determined by measuring moisture content. The optimum moisture content of the rice grain at harvest time is 21 to 24 percent.

Under tropical conditions this point is generally reached 28 to 32 days after flowering. If the crop is allowed to stand d in the field after it reaches maturity, large losses occur in the both the field yield of the crop harvested and the percentage recovery of head rice after milling.

Early harvesting produces a higher quality milled rice. When grain is allowed to remain in the field after it is mature “sun checking” (cracking of the grain) occurs and many of the grains break during the grain is wetter and requires more drying before it can be stored. In addition, threshing early harvested paddy is more difficult.

Mechanical threshers remove the drudgery from the process and save time. Although they require a capital investment, the cost of operation is low. Small portable threshers powered by horsepower engines are available and are light enough to be carried readily from field to field.
Postharvest Technology of Rice: Harvesting and Threshing

Beets Processing

Beets Processing
Beets require 50 – 70 days from planting to harvesting. They are harvesting by machine and brought to the processing plant in hoppers or trucks. Generally they are not cooled prior to processing. Beets are canned but are not frozen. At the canning plant, the tops are cut off by machine, after which the roots are held for several days to allow the skin to wilt, thereby loosening it.

The beets are then graded for size by machine. After sizing, the beets are washed with sprays of water or in a soaking tank, and are then peeled. Beets are peeled by steaming at 220 degree F for about 20 min. after which the skin is removed. The peeled beets are then trimmed. Small beets are canned whole while the larger beets are sliced prior to filling into cans. The cans, to which beets have added to a point about 3/8 in. from the tops, are then filled with a weak salt solution. The cans are then sealed and heat processed.

Beets sold in the fresh state are washed, but usually not topped. They should be cooled to 32 – 35 degree F and held in this manner until sold to the consumer. In this edition, they have storage life of 10 – 14 days. When topped and cooled to 32 degree F they may be held for 3 – 5 months.
Beets Processing