Mechanical Tea Harvesting

Mechanical harvesting gets a bad rap. This is because poorly trained operators using poorly maintain
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4 responses to “Mechanical Tea Harvesting”

  1. Wow! Quite an informative article on mechanical tea harvesting. Good lessons to learn and adopt in Kenya too where mechanical harvesting is also now the in thing and talk of the day in the tea industry. Thanks Harki for sharing such invaluable insights.

  2. Very interesting read! We have a harvester but haven’t actually used it, shall give it a shot!

  3. Harki so glad that someone has elongated on the benefits of mechanical harvesting. Harvest at the correct shoot size to get quality as good snd as you rightly mentioned better leaf quality. Even plucking or harvest in this case gives even sized shoots improves quality. We in our organisation have started mechanisation from pruning as our pilot work with quality upgrade with suppliers of Unilever in assam has shown that due to shortage of workers even at time of pruning the small tea growers by force leave their field unpruned for 6/7 years at a time. A 3/4 years pruning cycle gives the best quality in the made teas.
    The bad name for plucking machines and shears have been because the harvest is from 4/5 years of Unpruned fields- the shoots are leathery very low moisture in plucked shoots which lowers the quality of for briskness and body required for strong CTC teas.
    Thanks harki

  4. Interesting interview with a detailed study on mechanical harvesting. I would be very keen to know which gardens in Dooars/Terai/Assam are on machine plucking and it’s impact on cycle yield.
    Thank you