Automated Produce Equipment
Upmatic Master Bagger/Baler, Columbia Okura Robotic Palletizer
Automated Produce Equipment recently completed the installation of a second Upmatic Master Bagger/Baler. The reliability and performance of the first unit installed resulted in the installation of a second machine. The Upmatic Master Bagger/Baler, which is in use in onion and potato sheds, allows for the re-allocation or reduction of labor on the end of the line.The addition of a Columbia Okura robotic palletizer is also value added as a labor-saving installation. Robotic palletizers typically have a lower acquisition cost and have fewer moving parts than traditional machines. Other benefits include the elimination of injuries and workers’ compensation claims associated with pallet stacking.
Top Air, Inc.
BTX 8400 Bed Tiller
The Top Air BTX 8400 bed tiller is designed to till seedbeds prepared in the fall for spring planting. This bed tiller utilizes S-tines and independent roller baskets to break up overwinter crust, lightly stir the soil and lightly firm the soil just ahead of the planter. The roller baskets are available with either chopper blades or expanded metal. Slickers are available to maintain wheel tracks or corrugates and the shape of raised beds.
The BTX 8400 is designed for eight 40-inch beds, but the tiller can be designed to fit most configurations. It can be mounted on a rigid or stacking bar. This machine can also be custom designed to lay drip tape.
Gellert
Agri-Star Control Panel
Growers can take control of their onion storages with Gellert’s Agri-Star Control Panel.
Since 1964, Gellert has been a climate control expert, designing and manufacturing thousands of climate control systems for a wide range of post-harvest products. With all these years of application experience and university-based research, the company has developed its most user-friendly, advanced control panel yet. Features include a full-color, interactive touchscreen, easy-to-understand programming and internet capabilities with an intuitive app.
Fully adaptable to growers’ onion storages, the Agri-Star panel can handle everything including curing mode, burners, humidity, refrigeration, airflow, temperature, carbon dioxide levels, heat and lights. When Gellert’s climate control equipment is matched with the Agri-Star panel, growers’ onions are wrapped in the perfect climate, extending their life and quality.
Eqraft
Eqrader Optical Onion Grader
The onion factory of the future must perform as reliably as possible with minimal physical labor. The Eqrader sorts onions at high speed by quality, size, weight, shape and color. The machine was specifically developed for and in cooperation with the onion industry and uses artificial intelligence to categorize onions.
The Eqrader cleans onions by advanced extraction units, keeping the machine clean from excessive dust and skins. It uses the dark chamber principle and near infra-red for internal inspection of the onion and rot detection. The machine inspects externally from two different positions to determine color, skin condition and size. It weighs onions and deposits them in the assigned exits. Soft cups provide gentle product handling. The Eqrader enables order fulfillment based on niches or volumes due to the known details of each inspected onion. Eqraft’s software, Eqontrol, enhances communication and control throughout the production line and enables a “smart onion factory.”
SYMACH
Palletizers
SYMACH palletizers make onion operations more efficient and produce pallets with no product overhang. The machines offer immediate labor savings, prevent product damage, and stack neat, stable pallets every time.
SYMACH is now part of Barry-Wehmiller’s companies and continues to deliver products people need every day.
Greentronics
RiteTrace
Greentronics recently added load-by-load field-to-storage tracking to its RiteYield root crop yield monitor product. The new product, called RiteTrace, is designed to automate harvest and storage data recording, providing onion growers with a wide range of reports as well as field and 3D storage maps detailing where each load originated and where it is stored. Maps allow growers to select areas in storages or fields and link them together to understand issues around quality in discussions about crop management or when communicating with buyers and processors.
Detailed and summary reports include yields by variety and field, in addition to loads by field, storage and truck. Data points are all date/time stamped, and reports are useful for managing efficiency. Maps and reports work well with GAP compliance. Greentronics offers yield data integration with John Deere GS3 2630 and Trimble FMx and TMx monitors, allowing operators to view yield maps in real time.
Synthetic Resources Incorporated
ReflectorNET
ReflectorNET is an elastic pallet wrapping net typically used in the agricultural business for palletizing fresh produce that requires ventilation. ReflectorNET is manufactured with enhanced elasticity to wrap more pallets per roll, which saves money on packaging products, and to allow for stronger pallet containment, which provides peace of mind that loads are securely wrapped. ReflectorNET saves 50 to 60 percent of the cost of strap-and-corners packaging methods. The product offers an aggressive built-in memory that helps maintain width, providing excellent pallet stability with only little overlapping whether used in a wrapping machine or manually. Synthetic Resources Inc. offers ReflectorNET in 20-inch- and 30-inch-wide machine rolls. Standard pallet netting is available in hand and machine rolls.
Univerco
Two-Row Onion Harvesters
With 30 years of experience in building one-row onion harvesters, Univerco introduces its new two-row onion harvesters.
The two-row models are available in both short-day and long-day onion versions. Both units have a similar harvest capacity per day, a steering axle to reduce turning radius on headlands and a system of three cameras so the operator can easily monitor the key functions of the machine.
The short-day model has even more options available like a sorting table, brushes under the topper table to keep the rollers clean at all times, and more angle and speed adjustments of the topper table. These improvements were made in an effort to minimize mechanical damage to onions.
Nicholson Machinery
Toppers, Windrowers, Harvesters
Nicholson Machinery is excited to introduce its line of machinery for onion harvesting. Leading the way are the company’s field toppers, ranging from 5 to 22 feet wide, to remove tops cleaner than ever before, followed by manned or unmanned single- and multi-bed raisers/windrowers and harvesters to gently bag, box or bulk load to your requirements, and finally the shed finish topper, all carefully designed to enable growers to supply retailers with quality products.
Lee Shuknecht & Sons Inc.
Self-Propelled Harvester
The SP-132 is a self-propelled two-bed harvester that eliminates windrowing while simultaneously direct loading two beds, for a total production width of 132 inches using 47-inch chains. The mechanical harvester provides the highest percentage of topping of all the company’s onion harvesters, harvesting two to three tons per minute.
Powered by a standard 190-hp Cummins engine, the operator controls blower speed, primary and rear elevator speeds, cutter bar speed and height, and ground speed. The harvester features a 4-foot high capacity boom and front pick-up elevators with spring assist floats.
Options include a moveable 4- or 5-foot dipper, rotating cab, stainless blower housing liners and a 240-hp engine. Digital readouts for the blower, primary chain, and ground speed can be included, as well as hydraulic adjustment front elevator gauge wheels. Ground sync primary chain control, a posi-traction four-wheel-drive system, and hydraulic trash chain drive can all be built into the SP-132.
