Design Objective:

To dry harvest cranberries without sacrificing quality and freshness so that producers can offer a high quality fruit with an extended shelf life.

Solution:

A vacuum harvester with an adjustable picking head that is mounted on a mobile bridge. These units are hydraulically driven and come with a 6 foot picking head width.

This new wider harvester was designed for mounting onto a self-propelled bridge which operates on tramlines. The harvester side shifts after every consecutive pass and can rotate 180 degrees.

The bridge engine powers the vacuum rotor, oscillating tine head, and extraction conveyor. Extracted fruit is conveyed off the bridge into bulk bins that are set down along the tramline.

Three hydraulic motors and two cylinders run on this machine. Power requirements for these is as follows:

• Vacuum Rotor: 40 HP max @ 4000 rpm
• Harvest Head: 10 HP max @ 200 rpm
• Discharge Conveyor: 3 HP max @ 30 rpm
• Harvester Head Tilt Cylinder: max 2500 psi
• Oscillating Tines Depth Cylinder: max 2500 psi

Cross runner pruners are built into each tine, these are set on one-inch centers. The pruners work in conjunction with the forward/reverse oscillation of the tines. This oscillation motion detangles (combs) the runners as the machine moves forward. To prevent uprooting, and adjustable pressure roller behind the tines forces the vine down, preventing it from rising up and plugging the tines.

Fruit is stripped from the stems as they pass through the 1/4 inch gap between the tines. The detached fruit is immediately sucked into the vacuum chute above, dropped onto the discharge conveyor in the vacuum chamber, and then conveyed out.