September 2021 - 7

CELEBRATING 60 YEARS
" There really isn't a strawberry bred
specifically for machine harvest, so we
use Midway, " Grant said. " It works well.
It's firm and a good processing berry.
It also concentrates the ripening, so we
have few overripe berries. And green
berries have not been a serious problem.
In addition, Midway holds berries on
stems that the harvester can handle well. "
The harvest equipment is based on a
system advocated by the MSU engineers,
Grant said.
" There are two schools of thought on
how to design mechanical harvesters, "
he said. " One is to try to duplicate what a
human being does, such as in plucking a
berry directly off a stem. "
The other school, adopted by MSU
engineers Clarence Hansen, Dick
Ledebuhr and Gary Van Ee, is to
forget about trying to simulate human
movements and to analyze a problem
from a machine standpoint.
In the case of the Grants' strawberry
harvesting, that translates into a system
whereby all the plant material is cut
initially - berries, leaves, leaf stems and
berry-cluster stems. This material is then
conveyed into a machine where separation
of the " wheat " from the " chaff " takes place.
First of all, an air stream passes
through the material and blows out the
leaves, with just the berries left behind,
attached by their cluster stems.
Then those clusters are moved on an
open-grid conveyor through another
airstream that forces the clusters upward.
" The berries are heavier, so they resist
being raised, but their attached stems are
lifted up, " Grant said. " These 'stood-up'
clusters then pass by a mower blade that
is adjusted to cut about one inch above
the berries.
" So presto! We end up with berries
that are no longer attached to any other
berries, and each berry has only about
a one-inch stem. " That condition leaves
the berries in an ideal shape for the inplant
processing machinery that MSU's
Hansen has developed, Grant said.
The Grants' harvesting system did
not spring into being overnight, he
said. By 1977, the general interest in
mechanization began lagging as a surplus
of strawberry pickers re-emerged. The
Grants took a longer-run view, however,
and decided mechanization would be a
kind of insurance.
" If we could be guaranteed pickers
every year, permanently, then there
wouldn't be any machines, " Grant said.
" So we decided to go ahead and try to
build a harvester. "
Their first machine was assembled in
1977, and the cutter head and pickup fingers
were tested. A couple of problems ensued -
the fingers couldn't get under the berries
well enough, and processors rejected
berries with the stems still attached.
The latter problem was resolved the
next year after processors were persuaded
to install machinery designed by Hansen
that allows decapping of berries with
stems still attached. Meanwhile, the
Grants' harvester was largely rebuilt that
year with Hansen's and Ledebuhr's help.
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The strawberry patches harvested were
still row-and-walkaway types, and the
recovery was only about five tons per acre.
In 1979, the harvest was smaller than
that. " We never did get more than 2.5 to
3.5 tons off the patches. We were still using
rows, " Grant said. But that year an outside
observer, the brother-in-law of a neighbor,
made a suggestion for a hinged design
to lift the fingers, so another step toward
improved efficiency was added, he said.
The next year, 1980, saw a
" breakthrough, " as the MSU engineers
came up with a " double-sickle drive
mechanism, a double-sickle hedger, "
Grant said. A 12-ton harvest was
recovered of a rolled, well-tended
two-acre patch belonging to Bill Grant.
There was another breakthrough in
1981 - " MSU's new blower design, "
Grant said. " Besides that, the harvester
straight-through design improved the
ease of harvesting and removal of the
stem harvester. We're happy with it. It
was a good harvest year. "
The machine is not really extremely
complex nor is it difficult to operate,
Grant said. " Our machine is made so any
farmer can run it, though it still takes a
pretty good operator. That's why we say
it's still a Model A. With last year's model,
though, the operator was not as important
(in getting the correct functioning of the
equipment) as before, but we want to
keep making the equipment easier to run.
We hope to get to the point where the
operator is not important at all.
" We want solid-set plants because then
the berries stay hung up in the foliage
and they're easier for the conveyor to
get under, " he said. " We want to get the
maximum number of berries picked up.
Since solid-set means more plants per
acre, we get greatly increased production
that way, and then we also get greater
recovery of the berries.
" That's why we're so happy with our
mechanized system. " FGN
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September 2021

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