Thread: Hooray!! Robotic fruit pickers are coming!

Custom farming can be a very good thing for those with agricultural operations to small to justify expensive equipment. It also creates jobs , it can be profitable for those that are willing to invest in the equipment to do it.

I am all for mechanized farming. More R&D funding should apply to it .

What I think still does not change the time lines involved with putting out equipment to pick most fruit.

Here is a photo of a tractor mounted raspberry harvester. Raspberries are an easily damaged produce item, but this sure doesn't look like any million dollar machine to me. A recycler could probably build a reasonable one for a few grand!
http://www.tremainefarms.com/Tractor%20 ... Littau.htm
Sorry I don't know how to post the photo (somebody give me a tip). The article states that raspberries in this area are all machine harvested, but I don't think quite yet.

Other ways to get the harvest done: U-pickers, food co-ops, even kids could pick them and sell them at retail, if they didn't get in Health inspector trouble.

! have also found out that ripe fruit can many times be sucked off with a vaccum. Raspberries and other can berrries are in this category. You gotta remember that anything harder to be pulled of with a machine is also harder to pull off by hand. I bet electric stem clippers, trunk shakers, possible even pressurized air could do the job.

If the Government put out a prize of $250,000 for the cheapest most efficient design they would get some college kids to design 'em. They already are!

It looks simple enough alright. Not nearly as complicated as say a bus load of illegal. Vacuum , vibratory , pluckers , three toed cluckers, sooner or later they will get it done.

Then again they may find that genetically engineered trees that give up their fruit at the right time will prove more profitable. Hang a net under each tree and watch it all happen in one or two days.