Originally Posted by
crappiefarmer
The only reason these crops have not had mechanical harvesters developed is because of the cheap labor. It can be done on any type crop. You cut off illegals from working here and in six months You will have some mechanized grape harvesters created. they might not do as good a job as getting every single grape but they will be cost effective when you look at not having to pay a whole army year after year. Look at cotton. 50 years ago, We were still picking by hand and bagging it in sacks to carry to the gin. Now the latest is a 6 row machine that builds rectangular (Case IH) or round (John Deere) modules (bales) on the machine and sets down on the headland for pick up. A one man operation. 50 years ago. it took an army to pick and process. In my opinion, the industry needs to be mechanized completely and do away with all the unneeded jobs that are cheap labor anyway. Labor is the biggest headache and this is from an operators point of view. CF