Effects of a manual harvesting device on the quality of the fermented green olives (cv. Manzanilla)

Eddy Plasquy, Maria del Carmen Florido and Antonio Higinio Sánchez
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Eddy Plasquy: Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of Plant Products Department, Instituto de la Grasa - CSIC, Seville, Spain
Maria del Carmen Florido: Crystallography, Mineralogy and Agricultural Chemistry Department, ETSIA, University of Seville, Seville, Spain
Antonio Higinio Sánchez: Food Biotechnology Department, Instituto de la Grasa - CSIC, Seville, Spain

Research in Agricultural Engineering, 2021, vol. 67, issue 4, 164-170

Abstract: In order to make harvesting table olives profitable, mechanical harvesting has become an absolute necessity. Many small Andalusian producers face structural and financial constraints in implementing the mechanisation of harvesting and, as a consequence, the fruit is still harvested manually. A manual inverted umbrella (MIU), initially designed for harvesting oil olives, was evaluated in order to determine the extent in which this device can optimise the harvesting without jeopardising the fruit quality. Simultaneously, the effects of a diluted lye treatment, applied to prevent the proliferation of brown spots caused by bruising during mechanical harvesting, was also studied. The quality of the harvested fruit was evaluated after complete fermentation. The results indicate that when no diluted lye treatment was applied, using the MIU resulted in a slightly inferior fruit quality. However, when the amount of heavily damaged fruit is taken as a standard, the MIU presented results comparable to those obtained by manual harvesting. The MIU does, therefore, offer small producers an efficient alternative, given that manual harvesting costs are up to three times higher than the costs incurred during MIU harvesting.

Keywords: fruit damage; harvesting; manual device; small producers; table olives (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:caa:jnlrae:v:67:y:2021:i:4:id:7-2021-rae

DOI: 10.17221/7/2021-RAE

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