Brazil's Fundecitrus, in partnership with the companies Agricef and Move Agro, has created the Harvest+ project that seeks to improve the country's orange harvest. In addition to enhancing the manual harvesting process, the project is searching for mechanized and semi-mechanized solutions for citrus farming. Harvest+ is in response to demand from producers and companies that want equipment capable of harvesting the fruit in a semi-mechanized or fully mechanized way. They seek a process that can provide productivity gains with cost reduction, increased harvest and better practices for harvesters.
The project has already gone through some stages of the manual harvesting process, tests with semi-mechanized equipment, identification of causes that generate a reduction in harvest yield and evaluation of improvement proposals. After all the evaluations and tests are carried out on citrus properties, the team will gather information and establish a practical and efficient concept so that growers can begin implementing the harvest mechanization process.
Read the full article at citrusindustry.net.