04/20/06 Improving tree fruit

Improving Tree Fruit productivity. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. The Washington State Tree Fruit Research Commission has approved the expenditure of $147,000 to develop a new technology for increasing production. The Over-The-Row or OTR worker platform concept would put workers where the fruit is. DOORNINK: A couple of years ago we started doing some time and motion studies on this and we found out that gee, people could pick quite a bit of fruit if they didn't have to walk 30 feet to the bin and if they didn't have to go back and move their ladder up and down the row. And so that immediately led us to working on platforms to move people up and down the row instead of having to carry a ladder. It not only let's us move the worker into place and make him efficient but it means that if this works we don't have to have a row that is wide enough to put a tractor down anymore. Jim Doornink is a producer and chair of the Tree Fruit Research Commission. He says the dynamic of the Research Commission has been crucial to the project. DOORNINK: We've put some researchers, and extension agent and growers all together on this project so they are running it like a team. That's important because it keeps it accountable and it keeps it practical. You know if something is not practical this group is not going to authorize it when they take it out into the field. They're going to say this doesn't work. The OTR worker platform could become a multipurpose device, adjustable to rows and could be used for spraying and pruning as well as harvesting. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.