Pecan production mechanisation has seen steady improvement in efficiency. Farmer’s Weekly’s mechanisation editor, Joe Spencer examines some of the latest equipment on offer locally.
With an eye on boosting productivity through mechanisation, agricultural equipment supplier Rovic Leers has identified the three most important areas in pecan production as harvesting, spraying and tree structure management. Pecans have become so valuable that it is crucial to prevent losses through poor collection. Preventing a 5% crop loss can mean an improvement of up to R600 000 in revenue per annum in a 50ha orchard producing 3t/ha.
For sweeping and blowing, Flory sweepers and blowers follows the ground contour for a 2,6m-wide clean sweep. While the self-propelled Flory 8600 harvester and the 860 trailed version uses a low-velocity, high-capacity fan and a three-step cleaning process removing pebbles, dirt and sand.The Gillison GVF rear centrally-mounted topper and hedger provides optimal operator visibility and safety. These machines makes sweeping and blowing, gathering the crop and tree structure management much more efficient.
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