1.) picking by hand
Blueberry picking is a nice way to harvest blueberries. Look for good ripe blueberries. A good blueberry skin should not be cracked and should be firm and round, blue. They will not get sweeter after harvest. To pick blueberries cup your hand under the bunch of blueberries and simply try to roll them off the branch towards your hand using your thumb. Then put the blueberries in your bucket. If it doesn’t come off easily, it’s probably not ripe yet, so move on. Several blueberries at a time using this procedure and most of the berries that are not ready will remain on the stem. About 40 to 50 percent of commercially grown blueberries are handpicked.
blueberry picking tool:
Using a blueberry rake can make harvest much quicker. A blueberry rake is a flat-toothed instrument used to remove berries from the plant without damaging it. Using a Hubbard rake is much faster than doing the same thing by hand. These are manufactured by the Hubbard Rake Co. in Jonesport, Maine 04649.
Manual harvesting of blueberries has been estimated to require up to 550 worker-hours per acre and in 2011 cost about $1.00 per pound. Labor costs are forecast to rise, while blueberry prices are expected to decline. As the blueberry industry expands nationally, finding enough workers to handpick during peak harvest season can become an issue.
two.) You choose
The U-pick is carried out by hand by the clients who come to the farm for this purpose. They carry their blueberries in a bucket or other container. At some point a rope is put on the bucket so that it can hang over your shoulder or around a person’s neck. A great container can be easily made by using a 1 gallon plastic milk bottle and cutting off the top of the front and top, making sure to leave the handle part. From the farmers’ perspective, u-picking may be the most profitable alternative. However, you must have major liability insurance in case of an unforeseen accident.
3.) Shake and Catch (Blueberry Fruit Catch Frame)
There are blueberry fruit catcher frames that are made to roll under blueberry bushes to collect the blueberries when the branches are shaken. Branches or stems can be tapped gently with a rubber hand hose to shake off ripe blueberries. You can also use an electric or pneumatic mechanical shaker to shake the branches. If you shake too many cranberries, it means you’re playing too hard! Using such a simple, hand-operated, wheeled rolling catch frame, you can harvest a large heavily loaded rolling plant in no time. When you want to empty the frame, the frame now filled with blueberries tips back on its wheels so the ripe fruit rolls into a rear lid that opens so the berries fall directly into the bin. The blueberries can then be gently passed over an inclined blower and belt to remove debris.
With this method, you can solve crop depression in hot weather from long hours in the field picking blueberries. You can then offer your U-Pick customers freshly picked blueberries at retail prices! These blueberry fruit picking frames were the predecessors of today’s mechanical harvesting systems. They were widely used in the 1950s, and often used portable power-driven vibrators that used batteries or compressed air to remove the fruit. As discussed above, the fruit was trapped in a tarp-covered catch structure placed under the plant. Such a simple system is incredibly efficient reducing harvest cost by 55% and reducing harvest time by over 200%. Blueberry fruit catch frames are now hard to find because manufacturers now make mechanical harvesting systems and have stopped making the catch frames.
If you can’t find a commercially available capture frame, you can create your own using a photographic image of said capture frame as shown on blueberry croft’s blueberry blog.
4.) Mechanical blueberry harvest
Harvesting blueberries with a machine is not a panacea. If the slope of the ground exceeds 10 percent, it is difficult to harvest with a machine. Damage to blueberries is greater than manual picking. In general, the expense of a self-propelled harvesting machine cannot be justified unless the blueberry production acreage exceeds 10 acres.
Several factors have generated increased interest in using a blueberry harvesting machine in recent years, as mechanical harvesting technology has improved, new labor regulations have emerged, and costs have increased. Not all fields are suitable for the use of mechanical harvesters. In general, at least 10 rows or rows wide and 25 foot turning places are required at the end of the rows for movement of power harvesters. Blueberries for the fresh market have a short shelf life when harvested with machines. Therefore, machine-harvested blueberries must be sold quickly. Shelf life is typically shorter than that of hand-picked blueberries.
Perhaps the most serious drawback to using mechanical harvesters is that this process can damage blueberries. Blueberries can simply be bruised by the impact resulting from a vertical drop during any step of the mechanical harvesting process. If the height of a drop on a hard surface exceeds 6 inches, extensive bruising can occur on ripe blueberries. The amount of damage is related to the distance the blueberries fall. Bruised blueberries are also subject to more decay during storage after harvest.
Today, machine harvesting is about 10 times faster than a typical person using a hand rake, running it through the bushes over and over throughout the day. About 10 years ago, 20% of blueberries were harvested using mechanical equipment. Today, about 80 percent of growers with large blueberry fields use machinery to replace hand pickers because it’s cheaper.
