TECHNICAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF MECHANICAL OLIVE PICKING

Since the consumption of oil and eating olives is so high in this region that it brings about a great deficit in the regional food and agricultural balance, the expansion of such a production sector becomes essential. But this can occur only through the reduction of the picking cost; in fact olive picking covers as much as 60% of the total production costs. So three different equipment stocks were investigated: a traditional layout with hand picking and two work site layout, one with nets and one with intercepting frame. The field trials emphasized the technical-operational characteristics and enabled us to set up an adequate simulation model.