Mechanization of citrus harvest

In most parts of the world, citrus are currently manually harvested, loaded in boxes and transported topacking houses or to processing facilities where fruit needs some kind of sorting. Although there are twoclearly differentiated ways of cultivating citrus: for the fresh and for the processed market, in both casesmanual harvesting accounts for the most part of the total production costs, with a high net share in the finalprice of the product. This situation has lead to major producing countries to invest in developing methodsfor mechanical mass harvesting. Moreover, the use of abscission agents for improving the performance ofharvesting machines has been under research for more than a decade. This workshop is aimed at sharing with the audience the state of the art in mechanical harvest of citrusaround the World and discussing about the efficiency, adaptability and socio-economic implications of theproposed solutions, including: . A historical review of engineering approaches to mechanical harvesting of citrus in Florida, where themost relevant efforts for mechanization of citrus for juice have been made since the 50’s. . Trunk shakers and fruit catchers experiences in Spain for harvesting fruits for the fresh market. . Historical attempts for robotic harvesting and current solutions for in-field sorting of fruit duringharvesting in order to reduce packing costs. Limited energy and space availability are always criticalissues for the electronic and mechanical designs of these machines. . The effect of mechanical harvesting on tree stresses and production in the subsequent years. . The advantages and disadvantages of the use of chemical abscission agents for facilitating the mechanicaloperation. . Needs and solutions for debris removal after mechanical harvesting. After a series of presentations by key researchers in these topics [(J. Syvertsen (UF), T. Spann (UF), J. Burns(UF), A. Torregrosa (UPV, Spain)], the participants in the workshop will have the oppor