Trunk shakers are primarily used for the mechanical harvesting of oil olives in intensive orchards. The objective of this trial was to determine the efficiency of mechanical harvesting of olives with a self-propelled trunk shaker with a reversed umbrella interceptor (model F3, SICMA, Catanzaro, Italy), from adult trees of two autochthonous cultivars, ‘Ortice’ and ‘Ortolana’, growing in southern Italy with 6 × 6 m spacing and trained to the vase system. The main characteristics of the trunk shaker were: an engine power of 77 Kw (105 CV), a very-high-frequency vibrating head (1800-2000 vibrations/min), a self-braking system and a 6-meter diameter umbrella opening. The worksite consisted of two workers, one for maneuvering the harvesting machine, and the other for handling the olives. Mechanical harvesting was carried on 30 November 2006 when the fruits of ‘Ortice’ and ‘Ortolana’ had a weight and detachment force around 2.8 g and 3.1 N and 3.8 g and 4.6 N, respectively, and the fruit drop was around 14% and 10%, respectively. Both cultivars had a good production (26.06 and 21.18 kg/tree). The mechanical harvesting yield (percentage of mechanically harvested olives) was very high, reaching values around 97% in both cultivars. Moreover, the low number of workers, the reduced time for the operation (2.5 min/tree), the good yield/tree and the high quantity of harvested fruit allowed a very high work productivity to be obtained: around 302 kg/h/worker for ‘Ortice’ and 246 kg/h/worker for ‘Ortolana’. The quality of the oils extracted from the harvested olives met the requirements set by European law for extra virgin olive oils. The results indicate that the use of a trunk shaker with a reversed umbrella can be an efficient solution for mechanical harvesting of the ‘Ortice’ and ‘Ortolana’ cultivars in southern Italy.

Advances in Horticultural Science, Vol 26 No 3-4 (2012)