Harvest Trends: More Mechanization Needed For Vegetable Growers

 

If asked what your biggest issue with harvesting is, more times than not, the answer will be labor. From the largest specialty crop producers growing on thousands of acres to someone producing just 1 acre of different vegetables, everyone wants to save on labor.

What are your options? If you’re a small producer, you may not have the capital to invest in harvesting equipment, but there are tools at their disposal to reduce labor and help minimize worker fatigue.

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McDonnal auto header height control for web

The auto header height control on this unit from Pik Rite is used to control the depth of the machine in the ground, significantly enhancing performance of the machine, decreasing the stress of the operator.

Technology Driven
Many who can invest in the latest technology, however, do. Just ask Ben Puehler, president of McDonnall Harvester & Parts, a Pik Rite dealer. Based in Northwest Ohio, the company works with about 100 growers — with acreage ranging from 40 to 600 — who supply processors in the Midwest.

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“If we come out with a new widget, [growers] want to know how quickly they can get it, how it will improve quality, and how much will it reduce operating costs,” Puehler says. “The technology aspect in 2015 is just an animal to feed. The grower base throughout the Midwest is constantly chasing the next best unit.”

Brian Maul of Oxbo International, a designer, manufacturer, and distributor of harvesting equipment for both fresh and processing vegetables, agrees that reducing operating costs by improving productivity is key. He adds that many also want to incorporate precision ag tools, such as yield monitoring and mapping, auto guidance, and traceability of raw product from the field through the processing facility.

Homing in on yield mapping, Puehler agrees it is a sought-after tool. In fact, he says the new generation of sorters will yield map, count the fruit, and tell you what percentages of acceptable and unacceptable product is coming into the machine.

“This marries into that generation of agriculture that is interested in auto steer and auto everything,” he says. “If [growers] can buy something that will do the work for them, they are going to buy it.”

In fact, he says, growers are willing to pour more money into the industry than the industry can handle. Unlike the major ag equipment manufacturers, however, the companies supplying harvesting equipment to vegetable growers are not making 100,000 units of anything, he says.

“In the vegetable world, there is no ‘mass production.’ It is not a huge industry in the Midwest, and it very slow to change,” Puehler explains.

Oxbo harvester for web

The Oxbo 1080 multi-crop harvester can be equipped with attachments that allow the grower to cut, harvest, clean and convey spinach and other leafy greens, green beans, various seed crops, and other specialized vegetable crops.

Maximize Use
What is not changing is the grower’s need to get the most from his harvester. According to Maul, Oxbo offers a number of multi-use harvesters as growers always want to get the maximum use from their equipment.

“However, there are compromises in machine design that must be accepted if a multi-use harvester is desired,” he adds. “Often the most effective and efficient harvesters for specialty crops are single- or limited-purpose designs.” 

Citing a single-use harvester for tomatoes as an example, Puehler says retrofitting a second color sorter on the machine has created a tremendous increase in demand. Typically, he says, most tomato harvesters are equipped with one color sorter that occasionally misses a green tomato, a rock, or a clod of dirt. To reduce the incidence of missing any of those things, the option of adding a second electronic color sorter was made available, and growers are taking advantage of it. “We can’t install it fast enough,” he adds.

To avoid having outdated equipment, Puehler says it makes sense to create machinery that can be retrofitted. In fact, he says about 70% of McDonnall Harvester & Parts’ annual business is retrofitting or upgrading.  

The Cost Complication
Making those those upgrades, however, comes with a steep price tag. The cost to do upgrades or retrofit a new tool or component can be between $35,000 and $50,000, and growers are willing to pay for the upgrade because they can’t rely on the labor force, Puehler says. 

“[Growers] are looking for tools that replace someone’s hands,” he says. “Most of the growers we deal with, if they had a ready source of labor, they would not make that capital investment.”

Maul agrees labor availability is an issue but adds that labor cost is, too. “Many of the opportunities [Oxbo] has had in previously non-mechanized harvest crops are a result of either hand-labor shortages or increasing costs and regulatory complications for the hand labor that is available.”

The Future Of Mechanization
Both Maul and Puehler say mechanization will be the way of the future. In fact, Puehler says growers will mechanize at at a breakneck pace.

“If we can provide the grower and the processor with a better product with fewer people involved, it will continue to escalate,” he adds.

Maul says the need to continuously improve to survive is the reason mechanization will be necessary.

“While labor availability and cost will fluctuate based upon the people elected to certain offices and their politics, the progressive and successful growers will be the ones who make investments that will reduce their reliance upon such unpredictable and unreliable factors,” Maul says.

Tools For The Direct Marketer

Johnny’s Selected Seeds, also a supplier of harvesting tools, offers a variety of components to help small growers save on labor and time, as well.

According to Johnny’s Andrew Mefferd, mechanization isn’t an option when you produce numerous vegetable crops on limited acreage.

“For the growers we serve the emphasis is still on doing it by hand because our growers are not mono-croppers,” he explains. “It is probably not economical to invest in a machine that just does one crop. It’s not worth it to make that investment when you have a small diversified farm.”

Tools that simplify, increase speed, and reduce fatigue, however, are worth the investment, he says.

For example, he says Johnny’s manual greens harvester is a tool being requested by smaller growers. Mefferd compares it to a band saw mounted on the front of a tractor that cuts the greens down as the tractor drives over the bed.

“Instead of a whirling band saw, it has a fixed band saw on the front of it. The operator uses it to saw through thick stands of greens, such as baby lettuce mix or baby greens. It is a simple fix that makes it so much faster and easier on the back than bending over and cutting a bunch of salad mix with a knife, putting it in a bag, and then reaching out for another handful.”

Mefferd also mentions hands-free pruning scissors that are used in greenhouses, but also can be used as harvest scissors. By placing your pointer finger through part of the handle, the scissors stay on your hand, allowing you to continue to work without having to put down the scissors, he says.

Growers’ Greatest Harvesting Challenges

American Vegetable Grower reached out to a couple of growers to ask about the harvesting challenges they are facing. Here’s what they had to say.

John Hundley, Hundley Farms, Belle Glade, FL, producer of beans, celery, squash, sweet corn, tomatoes, and radishes

The greatest challenge is finding enough quality hand-harvesting labor. Our company has invested heavily in mechanization and going from field packing to a more controlled environment at our packing facility. We have actually produced a higher quality product but at a higher price due to the huge capital costs up front. We anticipate seeing the fruits of our decisions in the years to come.

In particular, we have invested in mechanical sweet corn harvesters and a fully integrated sweet corn packing line that allows us to have full control on how we pack each box and how we stack each box, so that it makes arrivals to our customers with the highest quality.

In vegetable farming there are very few things we can control, so our goal is to control the things that we can. For our efforts, the investment in doing this has been in the millions.

Armando Mandujano, Coyanosa, TX, producer of cantaloupe, onions, pumpkin, and watermelon

The greatest challenge with harvesting is labor. We have been blessed and lucky that we have been able to use the H-2A program. Without it, there would not be much hope of doing it right. It’s a good way of using legalized labor, but there are many challenges that come with it.

In the area of harvest equipment, there has been a lot of progress including the use of harvest aids to reduce labor and using better varieties, but there are still many vegetables that cannot be mechanically harvested. Vegetable farming is not even close to commodity farming where most of the work is done mechanically.

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