HORTICULTURAL FACTORS INFLUENCING FRUIT DAMAGE AT MECHANICAL APRICOT HARVESTING

The wide spread of mechanical apricot harvesting is hindered first of all by the uneven ripening of apricots on the tree and by mechanical fruit damage at mechanical harvesting (see References). Therefore it the shaking, falling and catching, because of their thin and weak skin.
Thus, apricots, harvested mechanically, are suitable only for processing.
Though the small fruit injuries “cook out” during processing (1, 11, 14, 15, 16), but heavy injuries and bruisings appear on canned fruits.
The injuries encourage a rapid decay of fruits (brown rot and others), particularly in wet weather (3, 7, 8, 10, 19).

Various and rather contradicting data have been reported about the percentage of injured and bruised fruits and about the degree of fruit damage at mechanical harvesting (see References). Therefore it seemed for us necessary to determine more exactly the factors influencing them at machine harvesting by shake-catch method.

VII Symposium on Apricot Culture and Decline

R. MÁDY

https://doi.org/10.17660/ActaHortic.1983.121.49