Abstract
Trunk shake-catch systems have been used commercially to a limited extent to mechanically harvest Florida oranges for processing for the past five seasons. In most cases, oranges left on the trees by the shakers and missing the catchframes must be gleaned by hand harvesters and the cost of gleaning reduces or eliminates the profit for the mechanical harvesting operation. During the 1997-1998 and 1998-1999 seasons, abscission chemicals under development to reduce the detachment force of oranges have been tested to determine to what extent they increase the removal efficiency of the shakers. This paper will discuss orange removal results with various chemicals. In general, removal efficiencies were increased 10 to 15 percentage points when orange detachment forces were reduced 50 to 80%.
