Technology that will be tested in Washington State this harvest could help apple growers sort out undesirable fruit in the orchard and avoid the costs of sending it to the warehouse. Picker Technologies, LLC, a Washington-based company, and Oxbo Corporation of Wisconsin, are developing a picking platform designed not only to increase picker efficiency but to sort out the culls. Instead of carrying picking bags, pickers place the apples into tubes that carry fruit up to the platform. There, it goes an electronic sorter that places fresh-grade fruit into one bin and cull fruit into another. The bins of cull […]