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Submitted to: Acta Horticulture Proceedings
Publication Type: Proceedings Publication Acceptance Date: 12/7/1995 Publication Date: N/A Citation: N/A Interpretive Summary: Technical Abstract: For over 28 years 75 different producers, entrepreneurs, engineers, processors, consultants, state and federal researchers, and manufacturers have constructed about 195 harvesters worldwide attempting to mechanize the harvest of Capsicum peppers. Fourteen issued patents have been identified for mechanical pepper harvesting. Countries that have tested experimental harvesters include: Bulgaria, Canada, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Spain, the United States, and the former USSR. Nearly 20 different mechanical harvesting principles have been tested. In 1980 there were 10 different U.S. university, state, and federal research agencies experimenting with pepper harvest mechanization. By 1990 there were none. Fourteen patents have been issued for pepper mechanical harvesters. Interest in mechanization has resumed in the United States in the 1990s. Since harvest mechanization was first used commercially in California on bell peppers for dehydration in 1967 or earlier, the amount of peppers harvested mechanically has rarely exceeded 1000 acres in the United States. This is expected to increase significantly by the end of this decade. The first peppers to be mechanically harvested will be tose used for canning or dehydration processing. |
