Academic literature on the topic 'Presorting'

In recent years, storing mandarin fruit in cold facilities has become a common practice to retain fruit quality and expand the marketing window, but postharvest diseases can limit the storage period for the fruit. To identify major postharvest diseases affecting mandarins, decayed fruit were collected from 20 and 46 grower lots in 2015 and 2016, respectively, either at presorting or after cold storage. Fungal isolation and identification were attempted for all decayed fruit. Alternaria rot caused by Alternaria spp. was most prevalent on nonstored fruit collected at presorting, accounting for 53.5% and 83.1% in 2015 and 2016, respectively. On stored fruit collected after cold storage, green mold caused by Penicillium digitatum (36.3%) was most prevalent followed by Mucor rot caused by Mucor piriformis (27.7%) and blue mold caused by P. italicum (23.3%) in 2015, while gray mold caused by Botrytis cinerea (29.7%) was most prevalent followed by Mucor rot (27.1%) and sour rot caused by Geotrichum citri-aurantii (18.7%) in 2016. Our results indicate that gray mold and Mucor rot are two emerging postharvest diseases of mandarin fruit in California and that postharvest disease-control programs for mandarin fruit should target not only common postharvest diseases such as green mold, blue mold, and sour rot, but also emerging diseases Mucor rot and gray mold.

Abstract. In-field presorting of apples, in combination with the harvest aid function, would have advantages of cost savings in postharvest handling and storage, reduced postharvest pest and disease problems, and better inventory management, while also enhancing harvest productivity. A new apple harvest and in-field presorting prototype was developed to help apple growers achieve these potential benefits. The prototype sorts and grades fruit based on color and size, using a machine vision-based sorting system with an innovative fruit singulating and rotating design (SRD), and it handles the graded fruit in the bins using newly designed automatic bin fillers. Bruise damage by impact is a critical factor in the development of the apple harvest and in-field presorting prototype. This article reports on the major design features of the prototype and experimental evaluation of the prototype for potential bruise damage. Experiments were conducted on ‘Gala’ and ‘Fuji’ apples to evaluate bruise damage potential under both empty and partially filled bin conditions. An impact recording device (IRD) was used to measure the impact magnitude in terms of peak acceleration (G) at all critical points of the machine, including harvest conveyors, main conveyor, flat conveyor, SRD, cup conveyor, bin filler, and bins. It was found that bruise damage mainly occurred during bin filling. The number of impacts recorded for the partially filled bin was reduced by 60%, compared to that for the empty bin, indicating that the impact between apples and the wooden bin’s floor was a major cause of bruising. The maximum G value for the partially filled bin was measured at 34.5, while the measured G values were less than 20 from start to the point just before the bin filler, indicating no bruise damage. Bruise evaluation showed that no more than 9% of the test apples would be downgraded from ‘Extra Fancy’ grade for the partially filled bin condition. Higher G values for the empty bin condition suggested the need for further improvement to the discharge of apples from the bin filler to the bin to further reduce bruise damage. Keywords: Apples, Bruising, Fruit, Grading, Harvesting, Sorting, Machine vision.

Background and Objectives: In the near future, in Europe a raised availability of hardwoods is expected. One possible sales market is the building sector, where medium dense European hardwoods could be used as load bearing elements. For the hardwood species beech, oak, and sweet chestnut technical building approvals already allow the production of hardwood glulam. For the species maple and ash this is not possible yet. This paper aims to evaluate the economic feasibility of glulam production from low dimension ash and maple timber from thinnings. Therefore, round wood qualities and the resulting lumber qualities are assessed and final as well as intermediate yields are calculated. Materials and Methods: 81 maple logs and 79 ash logs cut from trees from thinning operations in mixed (beech) forest stands were visually graded, cant sawn, and turned into strength-graded glulam lamellas. The volume yield of each production step was calculated. Results: The highest volume yield losses occur during milling of round wood (around 50%) and “presorting and planning” the dried lumber (56–60%). Strength grading is another key process in the production process. When grading according to DIN 4074-5 (2008), another 40–50% volume loss is reported, while combined visual and machine grading only produces 7–15% rejects. Conclusions: Yield raise potentials were identified especially in the production steps milling, presorting and planning and strength grading.