Harvest almost done

I'll try a few pictures of this years cranberry harvest. The whole west coast is down - but we did ok considering the year.
Dry harvesting cranberries for fresh fruit - Late September


Back side of Darlington Fresh Fruit Harvester


Water harvesting -process berries- base of elevator.

I will try to post more pictures of the harvest later when I download them from my phone. G

Thanks for sharing, always enjoy the oppurtunity to see how various crops are harvested.

Are you in Grayland? We bought Allen Devlin's place in Chehalis 20 years ago- haven't seen him in awhile, but understand he's hangin' in there in the cranberry business. Still doing some pump and electrical work to make ends meet. Good guy.

No Mike, further north. My Farm is just south of Nanaimo on Vancouver Island. My parents farm is in Richmond - just outside Vancouver. My farm is done and we will be finished Richmond tomorrow.

I was through Grayland last year, usually just go to Longbeach to the summer meeting at the Pacific Cranberry Research Foundation. Is Chehalis where the neuclear plant is or further south west?
Yellow Point Cranberries

Thanks for the pics, like to see how other farming is done. Didn;t know there was a dry way, only ever see the water pools on TV. That little machine looks like some real work to get anywhere!

--->Paul

Ya, the dry picker is somthing else;>( In order for it to work properly it must be dry - no dew etc. If we are lucky we can start picking at 11 and are usually done at 4 (this is about the 20th of September). We are trying to get the fruit in for CDN Thanksgiving.

Most people don"t realize that most any cranberries they see packaged in the store are picked this way - at least on both coasts, in Wisconson they do a slush harvest and dry the fruit. Fresh fruit harvest does not dammage the fruit the way water harvesting does - it has a much better quality / pack out etc.

With 4 machines running we can pick about 2 acres a day...but there are always breakdowns and it is all 41 pitch chain and sprockets with more moving parts than the ETD.

These Darlingtons are from the 60"s - just rebuilt with new honda engines. You can buy them new from Mass and parts are still avaliable. I will rebuild two more this winter.
Having said that, there has to be a better way to fresh pick. It is just too labour intensive. This guy is one of my youngest workers - well I have a couple high school kids who pull the sacks out of the field, but it is hard work.
Hopefully this winter I will try to mount a couple picking heads on my big pruner unit. Got to keep making improvments. Grant

Ya, the dry picker is somthing else;>( In order for it to work properly it must be dry - no dew etc. If we are lucky we can start picking at 11 and are usually done at 4 (this is about the 20th of September). We are trying to get the fruit in for CDN Thanksgiving.

Most people don"t realize that most any cranberries they see packaged in the store are picked this way - at least on both coasts, in Wisconson they do a slush harvest and dry the fruit. Fresh fruit harvest does not dammage the fruit the way water harvesting does - it has a much better quality / pack out etc.

With 4 machines running we can pick about 2 acres a day...but there are always breakdowns and it is all 41 pitch chain and sprockets with more moving parts than the ETD.

These Darlingtons are from the 60"s - just rebuilt with new honda engines. You can buy them new from Mass and parts are still avaliable. I will rebuild two more this winter.
Having said that, there has to be a better way to fresh pick. It is just too labour intensive. This guy is one of my youngest workers - well I have a couple high school kids who pull the sacks out of the field, but it is hard work.
Hopefully this winter I will try to mount a couple picking heads on my big pruner unit. Got to keep making improvments. Grant

Chehalis is about halfway between Seattle and Portland. No nuke plants here- but the one that was abandoned when half built is about 40 miles away.

I used to go to the "cranberry meeting" in Long Beach when I was a loan officer for the Farm Credit System- do they still do the planked salmon for lunch?

thanks for sharing the pics, i didn't know you were able to grow cranberries out on the west coast. my brothers good friend has about 20ac of berries out near us in eastern mass. and i have helped with the harvest before both dry and wet picks, very labor intensive and there really isn't any machinery for that type of farming. they have hand built all their own equipment i think except for the small pickers that bag the berries like your 1st photo. i think the craziest thing i have seen is the photos of the trucks at the oceanspray plant out by him with the lifts that put the flat bed 18 wheelers just about verticle in order to empty them.

Cranberries are grown in BC, Wa, and Or on our coast. We have about 6000 acres of cranberries in BC. Much of it grown right in the middle of Metro Vancouver.

Of that 6000 acres only about 60 acres are Dry Picked for fresh fruit - that supplies all of Western Canada with fresh - very specialized market. After working with the machines everyone understands why we don"t do more that way.

As you said, all the other equipment is hand made or custome - we are just too small a crop for JD or any other equipment manufacturer to get involved.

The first picture is me standing on the semi while the hi dump fills it with berries. In order to empty the semi they wash the fruit out with three 8" pipes or nozzels. Takes about 5 min to unload 50,000 lbs into the pool. Th hi-dump is kind of scary crazy in my mind - we just flipped it yesterday - no dammage no one hurt.

The second pictuer is my kids on last years Fresh harvest. I"ll post some new pictures in a day or so of the pool and beaters, elevator etc.

Interesting - much easier to post pics in modern view as I did with the first three.

This was the first year we didn"t have the salmon for lunch. Kind of miss it but the guy who cooked could never go to the meeting.