Elimination of Debris Using De-Stemmers on a Continuous Citrus Canopy Shake and Catch Harvester

The main objective of the research was to modify the continuous citrus canopy shake and catch harvester using de-stemmers for elimination of debris (also known as trash materials) from harvested citrus fruits. An extended de-stemmer with a set of ten 0.91 m long rollers was used at the citrus grove for conducting experiments. Its performance was compared with the regular de-stemmer with a set of ten 0.61 m long rollers and statistical analysis was performed to compare the efficiency of both de-stemmers. The overall efficiency of the de-trasher from the regular de-stemmer load was nearly 69.84% of the total debris was eliminated whereas for extended de-stemmer load 67.58% of the total debris was removed efficiently by the de-trasher.