F
o
rchard Plat form
F
T
he
frui
TG
rower
• JAN
u
A
r
Y2017
two-speedgearboxwith a lowgear for orchardwork and a
higher speed of up to 10km/h formovingbetween fields.
i
t is
also fittedwith a ‘helm’ towing system, where a drawbar can
be attached to the front of the platform to lift it upon tractor
link arms until the front wheels are off of the ground. This
allows themachine tobe towedbetween farms quickly and
safely. TheBillo Tapis is fittedwith a negative safety brake that
will automatically engagewhen there is a loss of power or
hydraulic pressure, ensuring that the platformwill stop in the
steepest of orchards.
The platform can steer itself in the rows using either
ultrasound sensors or amechanical sensor arm. This enables
all theworkers on the platform to fully concentrate on the
work they are doing, whether harvesting, pruning, tying, or
erectingorchard covers.
The harvest platform is fittedwith a state-of-the art bin-filling
system that is extremely gentlewith the fruit, ensuring that the
most delicate apples can be picked.
i
n
i
taly thesemachines
are often used for harvestingPink Lady, that is notoriously
easy tobruise. The platform is also fittedwith an automatic
bin-unloading system so that the bins can be fed into the
machine, filledwith fruit and then gently passed into the row
behind the platformwithout pickers being interrupted to
unload it.
TheBillo Tapis can be fittedwith either two or four picking
platforms and, dependingon the height of the trees, multiple
platforms allow thewhole tree tobe picked in one pass. The
platforms can be adjusted to a height of up to 2.1m, high
enough for the tallest orchards; and from 1.6mwide can
extend out to 3.1m, enabling their use in thewidest of row
spacings.
At theBillo factory the visitinggroup toured the production
area, seeing various aspects of the production of theBillo
Tapis platform.
Growers in the
u
K have been slow to adopt a one-pass
picking concept usingplatforms.
i
t tookmany years for the
use of picking trains tobecome part of growers’ harvesting
operations.
o
n some farms these have been complemented
with pickingplatforms used for a secondpass to harvest any
fruit out of the reach of pickers on the ground.
The consensus of the
u
Kgrowers present at the
demonstrationwas that it will be important tomaximise the
capability of each picker working on the platform to enable a
smooth single pass through the rows todeliver a cost
advantage over current practices in the
u
K. Clearly, aswith
any new system it will take time to acquire the operational
skills and theBillo Tapis needs aweek on a farm in the
u
K to
enable fine-tuningbefore a demonstration of its capability to
interestedgrowers.
w
ith increasingwage rates and
uncertainty over access to sufficient harvest workers, picking
platforms are the next step forward, until robotic picking
becomes a reality.
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