Leaf Blower Used To Clean Berries

Leaf Blower Used To Clean Berries MISCELLANEOUS EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous Bernice Ingvaldson blows leaves and other trash from her large berry crop with what she calls her “Chute-N-Go” berry cleaner that consists of a simple plastic chute and a leaf blower Ingvaldson and her husband Jim maintain around 2 000 honeyberry bushes also known as haskap berries Vol 42 No 5 They pick 3/4 of them mechanically for commercial sale “We shake the bushes to harvest berries at a much faster rate than hand picking ” says Ingvaldson “However shaking drops a lot of leaves that need to be removed from the final product ” Ingvaldson got the idea for her Chute-N-Go from a local man Ethan Stinar He and his family would roll blueberries down a blanket with a fan blowing away some of the debris For haskaps which have fragile skins Stinar built a frame with 2 by 4’s and made a chute out of a 4 by 8-ft sheet of slippery chloroplast used for plastic signs Air from a leaf blower is directed at the bottom of the chute As buckets of berries are poured into the chute the leaves are blown up and away “The berries come out so clean that we can go directly from the Chute-N-Go to vacuum sealing ” says Ingvaldson Check out the video at farmshow com to see the berry cleaner in action Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Honeyberry USA P O Box 512 19736 350th St Bagley Minn 56621 ph 218 331-8070; 218 694-3071; www honeyberryusa com; www facebook com/honeyberryusa

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