Onions are a root crop that grows underground. In large commercial operations, onions are often planted in rows so that tractors and other machinery may aid in the growing and harvesting process. Onions are particularly susceptible to sunburn. Due to this and to improve the harvesters’ working conditions, onions are picked at night. At this specific operation, the hand harvest starts in the late afternoon and lasts until shortly after midnight. The machine harvest starts at midnight and lasts until noon the following day.
Onion Harvesting
When onions are picked mechanically, the grower may make more money because it takes less time and effort. However, because of the possible ᴅᴀᴍᴀɢᴇ, not all onions can be collected by machines.
Which Type of Onions Can be Machine Harvested?
Machine harvesting can harm the onions because it is a tougher operation than manual harvesting. Because of this, only the yellow and occasionally the red onions are collected mechanically. Yellow onions are harder and better able to withstand mechanical harvesting. Yellow onions are hand-harvested during the beginning of the season, from late June to late July, and then machine-harvested from the middle to the end of the season. Later in the season, red onions can also be collected mechanically, but wʜɪᴛe onions are never harvested mechanically.
Onion Machine Harvesting Process
Mower – The tops of the onions are initially mowed by the mower as it passes through the field. In order to accomplish this, the mower ascends above ground and chops off the top of the onion plant.
Wind Roller-The onions are dug out from below by this machine, which then places the two rows it has collected into one row after moving them along a conveyor belt to remove soil and field debris. The purpose of this placement is to become ready for the third stage. To ensure that all of the onions end up in a row, employees follow this machine.
Top Air-During the growth season, the Top Air initially picked up four rows of onions; now, it only picks up two rows at a time. After that, it blows air, causing the onions to rise to the top of the machine where staff would manually sort them. The high-quality product is then moved to the neighboring trailer and driven to the packing facility.
You can see how this might boost the efficiency of the harvesting process given how quickly the procedure is completed and how few personnel is required. I want to thank Harris Fresh for coming and for enabling the information we acquired to be shared. See how all of these picked onions are packed by reading the blog post that follows this one.
Let’s see the Onion farming technology: Harvesting and processing in a factory in the ᴀᴡᴇsome video below.
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Video resource: NaLac Technique
