Picking techniques: picking and fruit handling

January 2013 | Presented by AgFirst | Future Orchards® harvest training webinar

This January 2013 Future Orchards® webinar is part of a practical harvest-training series developed by AgFirst. It focuses on fruit removal, handling and placement techniques that reduce bruising, stem injury and other avoidable defects.

The series is designed for use with harvest crews and supervisors, translating orchard quality standards into simple, repeatable picking techniques. The objective is to maintain harvest productivity while reducing the handling damage that can lower packout and storage performance.

For growers and managers, the value of the resource is its practical training focus. Harvest quality depends on consistent worker technique, so demonstrations such as these can be incorporated into inductions, refresher training and in-field supervision before and during harvest.

Used together with the other picking-technique webinars in the series, this resource provides a compact training package covering ladder work, fruit selection, picking bags, bin filling and careful fruit handling.