Ten years ago, the prospects for shifting the harvest of juice oranges from manual labor to mechanical systems loomed large. The Florida Department of Citrus was spending upwards of $2 million a year to develop new equipment and perfect abscission compounds.University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences field days were attracting sizable crowds to listen and observe the latest developments in mechanical harvesting. Most importantly, mechanically harvested acreage increased from less than6,000 acres in 1999 to more than 36,000 acres in 2004.
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