Table Olive Harvesting Moving from Manual to Mechanical

Richard Rosecrance, Louise Ferguson, Jackie Burns, Kitren Glozer, Bill Krueger 
and Uriel Rosa

The California table olive (Olea europaea L.) industry relies on hand harvesting of its primary ‘Manzanillo’ cultivar. Hand harvesting accounts for roughly 45-60% of gross return; and increasing labor costs will continue to adversely affect California’s global competitiveness in the table olive market. Consequently, considerable research attention has been devoted to the development of mechanized harvesters. Mechanical harvest has proven particularly difficult with table olives because: 1) fruit are physiologically immature and require considerable force to be removed from the tree, and 2) trunks of olive trees become stout, fluted and knobby with age which complicates the use of mechanical shakers that attach to the trunk, often resulting in ‘barking’. Thus, tree trunk damage, bruised fruit, and poor removal efficiency have limited the acceptance of mechanical harvesters in the table olive industry. New technologies, however, are being developed to address these problems.

Fruit ready for harvest are physiologically immmature.	Damage to olive trunk (barking) by trunk-shaking harvester.

Fruit Loosening Agents | Mechanical Harvesters