The FBGA meetings are always a great way for growers to connect and compare notes about what’s working and what isn’t. This past meeting in Citra on March 6 was no exception, especially when it came to the panel discussion on machine harvesting. Growers Ryan Atwood, Kyle Hill, Kyle Straughn, and Cameron Allison highlighted several important aspects, including labor and genetics.

Labor
Labor costs and shortages are always a pain point, and machine harvesting is a way to overcome those challenges. Straugh summed up the sentiment: “Without machine harvesting, I don’t think we’ll have a commercial industry in the near future. It’s the only way to compete with the labor issues we have.”

Despite being hailed as a solution, the growers on the panel agreed that relying solely on machine harvesting wouldn’t work. They shared their own positive experiences with alternating between the machines and manual pickers to get as much fruit as possible off the bush, but it’s a delicate balance.

Hill pointed out that it’s difficult to mechanically harvest if your labor is a domestic crew because the workers will just leave once they see machines being used. It’s easier if you have H2A labor, but H2A is more expensive.
“H2A is the way you couple people with mechanical harvesting,” Atwood agreed.

Genetics
Something all the panelists agreed on was the need to have the right varieties and to tailor growing practices to better serve machine harvesting.

The ‘Optimus,’ ‘Sentinel,’ and ‘Farthing’ varieties emerged as favorites for use with machine harvesting. Hill said ‘Sentinel’ picked “like a dream” because the green berries hold onto the plant well and the blues just let go.

Hill went on to explain the importance of training a plant for machine picking, saying a skinny base is important because a wide base tears up both the machine and the plants and drops a lot of fruit.

But Straughn issued a cautionary note, sharing that when he used cartons to train the plants, it resulted in a lower yield and top-heavy plants. 

To view the presentation material for the other speakers at the meeting, visit https://www.floridablueberrygrowers.org.