Guidelines To Manage Dust Around Your Orchard
June 9, 2015 Excessive dust during harvest can be a nuisance to workers, neighbors and the community at large.
With the continued drought, there is little moisture to help reduce dust, which means industry members have to be extra vigilant. The Almond Board of California (ABC) has pulled research together to help create specific guidelines for reducing harvest dust. The guidelines are applicable to growers, their employees and custom harvesters.
“As the footprint of the industry has grown, there are more neighbors than ever before – neighbors who live, work, go to school and drive nearby – all of whom the industry has a responsibility to be good neighbors,” Gabriele Ludwig, director, Environmental Affairs at ABC says. “The dust guidelines provide steps growers and harvesters can take to reduce the dust produced during harvest, while acknowledging that harvesting is a dusty process.”
ABC’s guidelines for dust management are as follows:
Start with a clean orchard.
Clean orchard floors make all dust management practices easier. Clean floors help you reduce suction fan speed on pickup machines. That can knock a lot of dust out of the process without losing harvest efficiency.
Plan your route.
Take every opportunity to blow dust back into the orchard using the tree canopy as a natural filter. Note that the trees and their canopies can help capture dust before it reaches roads and homes. Plan your passes and travel direction to direct dust away from roads, homes and sensitive locations such as schools, hospitals and daycare centers. If you are near a busy road, consider placing traffic signs to warn motorists of harvest activities.
Go low, but not too low.
Set sweeper heads to optimum level. Don’t set heads any lower than is necessary to recover the crop. Often, wire tines can be set to as high as half an inch off the ground and still do a good job sweeping. If set too low, the sweeping head will move an excess amount of dirt into the windrow, increasing dust from the pickup machine substantially.
Use wire tines.
If possible, only use wire tines on sweeper heads. Sweepers that use wire tines without rubber flaps can help reduce dust.
Avoid extra sweeper passes.
Use fewer blower passes when and where possible. One blower pass instead of three can reduce the amount of dust produced by half.
Fine-tune settings.
Often, extra attention to blower spout adjustment will help reduce dust from blower use. Adjustments that take into account changing field conditions help reduce dust compared to using one-size-fits-all settings. Adding a berm brush to sweepers may improve performance in some conditions.
Go slowly.
Taking almond harvester ground speeds down a notch is a big help with dust reduction. A pickup speed of 1.5 miles per hour cuts dust by 50% compared to 3 miles per hour. Note how conditions change from orchard to orchard and from early to late harvest. Adjust ground speed to match conditions. In loose soil conditions, slower ground speed lets gravity do more of the work by separating dirt from the crop, meaning harvester fans produce less dust.
Slow fans down, too.
Dialing back the rpms on harvester separator fans is another good way to reduce dust. Reducing separator fan speeds to the minimum needed for varying harvest conditions still allows you to harvest thoroughly and efficiently.
In addition, Ludwig says growers in the market for new harvest equipment should consider equipment that has been set up to help reduce dust, adding that here may even be some USDA-NRCS cost share opportunities available.
“Small changes in harvest practices add up to big improvements in dust reduction across the growing region.” Ludwig says. “Growers might even find unexpected benefits, such as decreased fuel and labor costs.”
More Dust Management Tips
In addition to those mentioned above, ABC offers the following tips:
- If you are working with a custom harvester, talk over dust control practices before harvest. Discuss and agree beforehand on the expected balance of speed, productivity and protecting workers, neighbors and the environment from excessive almond harvest dust.
- Manage dust on unpaved roads. Reducing speeds, spreading gravel and using products such as Dust-Down decreases road dust.
- During dry years, take into account that harvest activities will likely result in increased dust due to lack of stored soil moisture, and that a reduced tree canopy will filter less dust.
More information on reducing dust during almond harvest is available on ABC’s website.
Source: Almond Board of California
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