2010 Volume 9 Issue 1 Pages 107-112
After harvesting, lemon fruit are transported to packinghouses where they are sorted by size and quality. We measured the shock that lemon fruit received during all of the harvesting and processing stages in order to determine the causes of shock generation. Shock was measured using a “dummy lemon” that contained a shock sensor imbedded in formed polystyrene. It was found that lemon fruit received the most frequent and strongest shock at the packinghouses. The second highest amount of shock was received during harvesting, while the amount received during truck transportation was not especially high. The occurrence of shock exceeding 5 G during harvesting was primarily the result of handling by the farmers. This shock resulted from numerous factors, such as the height from which harvested lemon fruit are thrown into the collection basket, and the method used to transfer the lemon fruit from the collection baskets to shipping containers. Shock in the sorting line was mainly generated by gaps in the drying process, rotation drum for size sorting, gaps in front of the light sensor and falling from the sorting line to the boxing line. During weight sorting, which requires a longer brush washing time, the amount of shock sustained by the fruit was many times higher than that produced by the light sensor sorter. It is suggested that it is necessary to improve the sorting lines in order to reduce shock.
