Assessment of the Oli-Picker Harvester in Northeast Portugal

Trunk and bough shakers are common equipment for olive harvesting, and therefore information about their performance is becoming available. For less common equipment like canopy shakers, there is a lack of information relative to their field work capacity. The Oli-picker harvester is commercially available, and operates brushing the tree canopy with a spiked cylindrical comb mounted on a hydraulic articulated arm, making possible operation, inside or around the olive tree crown. This paper presents results from three years of observation of the Oli-picker harvester in Tras-os-Montes (northeast of Portugal), including the methodologies of work followed in the field, the work rates found and expected costs.