|
Harvesting olives, almonds, hazelnuts and sweet chestnuts is very
hard work which requires considerable manpower.
In order to reduce harvesting costs, many farmers prefer to wait
for the fruit to fall naturally from the plant, then gathering it with
sweeping and suction machines.
However, if these fruits stay on the ground too long, they tend to
develop mould and rot that reduces the quality of the fruit and,
in the case of olives, the quality of the oil due to an increase in
acidity.
While the fruit was manually harvested from the trees in the past,
the excessive labour involved in this operation led to the use of
mechanical harvesting methods, which involve shaking the plant
using poles or mechanical arms. The fruits fall onto netting laid
beneath the plants, leading to considerable savings in time and
labour.
|
