Costs, Field Survival, and Yields of Four Methods of Handling Tomato Transplants

L. A. Risse and T. Moffitt

No 373349, USDA Miscellaneous from United States Department of Agriculture

Abstract: Four methods of handling tomato transplants were tested: hand harvesting, bundling, and shed packing; hand harvesting, bundling, and field packing; hand harvesting and loose field packing; and machine harvesting and loose field packing. Whether harvested by hand or machine, tomato transplants packed loose in the field cost less to pack and ship than hand-harvested and bundled plants, whether shed or field packed, and their field survival rate and yield is the same or better. Machine-harvested, field-packed, loose plants showed a significantly higher field survival rate (92.7 percent) than plants handled by the other methods; their yield was also the highest (24.0 tons per acre), significantly higher than the yield from bundled plants. Costs for harvesting, packing, and shipping 1,000 plants (excluding capital investment costs) by each of the four methods were $2.70, $2.58, $2.27, and $2.23, respectively. If all 700 million of the transplants produced in southern Georgia for shipping to northern growing areas were packed loose in the field (whether machine or hand harvested), the average savings of approximately 40 cents per 1,000 plants would total $280,000 annually.

Keywords: Crop Production/Industries; Labor and Human Capital; Marketing; Production Economics; Productivity Analysis; Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18
Date: 1980-05
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ags:usdami:373349

DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.373349

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