UGA helping farmers be more gentle with their BLUEBERRIES - UGA ayudando a los agricultores a ser más delicados con sus ARÁNDANOS

Blueberries are now the state’s No. 1 fruit crop. They even beat out Georgia’s peaches. As farmers try to meet growing demand they’re also looking for ways to cut losses.

Freshly picked blueberries sit in baskets. Credit Stephanie Schupska / UGA



 

Researchers at the University of Georgia won a $2.37 million grant from the USDA to develop technology to help small to mid-size blueberry growers. During the harvesting process, a lot of blueberries get squashed. Machines do their best, but a lot of the time, they leave something to be desired. “You know, the quality's not very good," says Changying "Charlie" Li. "They usually cannot be sold as a fresh market fruit in a grocery store or a supermarket.” So the damaged blueberries get relegated to processed foods – like blueberry muffins. Li is an associate professor at the University of Georgia's College of Engineering. He's leading a national project with 10 universities to build a semi-mechanical harvester that is gentle on the blueberries. To help him do that, he developed a Berry Impact Recording Device.

 

 

It travels with other blueberries to measure all of the damage they’re subjected to as they move through a packing plant. Li says he hopes the technology will help farmers harvest more whole blueberries and make them cheaper for consumers. The other universities involved are also located in major blueberry producing states. They include the University of Florida, Michigan State University, Mississippi State University, North Carolina State University, Oregon State University, Penn State, Washington State University, University of California Berkeley, and the USDA Agricultural Research Station. 

Source: Tasnim Shamma (http://wabe.org)