Orange removal with trunk shakers and abscission chemicals

Trunk shake-catch systems have been used commercially to a limited extent t o mechanically harvest Florida oranges for processing for the past four sea sons. In most cases, oranges left on the trees by the shakers and those mis sing the catchframes must be gleaned by hand harvesters. The cost of gleani ng reduces or may eliminate the profit for the mechanical harvesting operat ion. During the past two seasons, abscission chemicals to reduce the detach ment force of oranges have been tested to determine to what extent they inc rease the fruit removal efficiency of the shakers. This article discusses o range removal results with various chemicals. In general, removal efficienc ies were increased 10 to 15 percentage points when orange detachment forces were reduced 50 to 80%.