http://www.theledger.com/article/20100202/NEWS/2025030/1178?Title=Mechanical-Citrus-Fruit-Harvesting-Stalemated

Mechanical Citrus Fruit Harvesting Stalemated

Growers, others struggle with cost issues for the new technology.



By Kevin Bouffard
THE LEDGER

Published: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 8:06 p.m.
Last Modified: Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 8:06 p.m.

LAKE WALES | Florida citrus officials hope federal approval of a new chemical that loosens the bond between the stem and fruit will lead to more widespread adoption of mechanical harvesting.

Once seen as the answer to the rising costs and occasional shortages of labor for manual picking of citrus fruit, mechanical harvesting has reached a "stalemate," Fritz Roka, a University of Florida agricultural economist at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center, told the Citrus Harvesting Research Advisory Council Tuesday.

"Growers haven't seen enough of a price difference between mechanical harvesting and handpicking," he told The Ledger.

Others, including harvesting companies, machine manufacturers and the juice processors who buy most of Florida's citrus fruit, also struggle with cost issues, Roka said.

Meanwhile the chemical known as CMNP, the acronym for its chemical name, has met nearly all the requirements for full registration at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Taw Richardson, CEO of AgroSource Inc., the Mountainside, N.J., company managing the registration.

By loosening the stem-fruit bond, CMNP causes the citrus to fall easily, making machine harvesting more efficient and less damaging to the trees.

AgroSource expects to submit the registration application by mid-year, he said. The EPA typically takes two years to decide on registration, which would make CMNP readily available on the market.

During its development in the past decade, only researchers have used CMNP on small plots in more than 100 studies to determine its effectiveness and to measure its environmental impacts for the EPA.

The chemical could become more widely available if the EPA approves an "experimental use permit" on 9,000 grove acres for one year, Richardson said. A decision is expected by the fall of 2011.

Wider CMNP use may show growers mechanical harvesters are safe and economical, Roka said. So far, the biggest obstacle hindering growers' adoption of the technology has been concern the machine's shaking force would cause long-term tree damage.

Processors also have expressed concern the machines increase the amount of twigs and other debris in fruit delivered to the plant, he said.

Roka presented his recent study showing equipment repairs, downtime and other factors related to debris increased processors' costs by 10.3 cents a box in the past three seasons.

That would amount to more than $12 million for the roughly 120 million boxes of oranges to be processed in the 2009-10 season.

[ Kevin Bouffard can be reached at kevin.bouffard@theledger.com or at 863-422-6800.