Mechanizing Green Chile Harvest
With New Mexico State University and the New Mexico Chile Association
Increasing cost and decreasing availability of labor for hand harvestof New Mexico's signature crop is presently driving chile production
overseas. Mechanization is urgently required to keep this industry,
and the economic and cultural value it represents, in our state.
This disk drive rubber finger mechanism (based on the concept initially developed
by Ed Eaton) was designed to gently but aggressively remove all fruit. The engineer who
designed this version (that's me, Paul Funk) should have considered where the peppers
would go after being picked. Lacking a clear escape path, many were turned into salsa
by the moving parts. Being "green" is only good if you are a New Mexico chile pepper.
This oversight interfered with assessing the mechanism's true performance potential.
This chain drive rubber finger mechanism was designed to harvest the low hanging
fruit (which is the most challenging) by thrusting into the crop at ground level and
lifting straight up through the entire height of the plant.
The rubber finger mechanisms being tested in green chile at NMSU Leyendecker
Plant Science Research Center, August 2008. For this test, fifteen plots were each
planted with five varieties. The two-row plots had a guard row on each side and were
550 ft (170 m) long, with the five varieties randomly located along the row length.
The experiment also included testing vertical and inclined helix mechanisms.
The Craeger head (pictured) came with eight helixes, four helixes on each side.
One head was modified to have seven helixes staggered with respect to each other.
Material from each harvest mechanism was captured and conveyed in a separate
product stream to the top of the machine, where it was bagged for later analysis.
After the harvester had passed through the field, all peppers remaining
on the plants were hand harvested and weighed. Peppers that had fallen
to the ground were also collected and weighed. This information helped
determine total yield for each variety as well as harvest efficiency.
The harvested material was separated into leaves and other plant material,
damaged peppers, and marketable peppers. This information was used to determine
mechanical damage. Peppers were also sorted according to maturity, color and
disease status to provide feedback to the NMSU plant breeding program as to
their relative levels of determinism and disease resistance.
Thanks:
Dr. Stephanie Walker, Extension Plant Sciences, and her crew, including Jessica Milner, Jeanine Castillo, Zulema Renteria, Maria Gonzales and Samantha Levy.The New Mexico Chile Association including Jaye Hawkins.
Vince Hernandez, who provided the harvest platform as well as substantial technical and moral support.
New Mexico State University Leyendecker Plant Science Research Center Farm Crew led by Mark Pacheco.
And the amazing professionals at the USDA-ARS-Southwestern Cotton Ginning Research Lab who pulled together an entire mechanical harvester and four interchangeable heads in three months, including: Fermin Alvarado, David Carabajal, Paul Delgado, Juan Gomez, Tye Lightfoot, Mark Trujillo and Kirk Zivkovich.