|
|
|
| Wording of plaque #45 THE UC –
BLACKWELDER TOMATO HARVESTER
AN HISTORIC LANDMARK
OF
AGRICULTURAL ENGINEERING |
In
1942, University of California, Davis (UCD) biologist, Jack
Hanna recognized the need
for breeding tomato varieties that ripen uniformly and withstand
the rigors of mechanical
harvesting. In 1949, UCD agricultural engineer Coby Lorenzen
and Hanna began
developing a mechanical tomato harvester. Parallel efforts
by others, notably those
started in 1957 by agricultural engineer Bill Stout and horticulturist
Stan Ries of
Michigan State University, eventually resulted in several
different harvesting mechanisms.
In
the late 1950s, UCD agricultural engineer Steven J. Sluka
developed a vine separator
for Lorenzen’s machine. The modified harvester was successfully
tested on the Lester
Heringer farm and Heringer convinced Blackwelder Manufacturing
Co. of Rio Vista, CA
to commercialize the UCD design. The resulting machine became
the dominant tomato
harvester in the world and revolutionized the industry. Methods
for harvesting processing
tomatoes in the USA changed from essentially all manual in
1963 to primarily
mechanical by 1968.
There
were great concerns about the displacement of hand labor by
mechanical
harvesting. However, the machines cut harvesting costs by
half and led to large increases
in both tomato acreage and tonnage within and eventually outside
the USA.
Dedicated by the
AMERICAN SOCIETY OF AGRICULTURAL AND BIOLOGICAL ENGINEERS
2005
|
|
|
|
|
HOME | HOME MEMBERS ONLY
| CONTACT | SEARCH
Technical Library 