Harvesting organically grown green oak leaf lettuce for Earthbound Farms near Hollister, CA. They use a "baby greens" harvester that cuts the lettuce within an inch of the ground with a band saw-like blade. The harvester is preceded by a crew of four workers on foot to check for debris and scare away any pests that may be lurking in the plants. The harvester has a blade that is automatically sterilized, and all greens are blown with air jets and pass over screens to remove soil or other contaminants before being put in a refrigerated truck for transfer to the packing facility. Salad harvesting starts well before dawn and concludes before midday to keep the salad greens as fresh and crispy as possible. This kind of harvester was developed about 15 years ago and lets Earthbound harvest 10,000 lbs. of salad per hour with a crew of 12, which used to take an entire day with a crew of 40.
- Filename
- STNMTZ_20160504_0500.tif
- Copyright
- ©2016 George Steinmetz
- Image Size
- 4600x3448 / 45.4MB
- www.GeorgeSteinmetz.com
- Contained in galleries
- 21st Century Agriculture
