An orange picker, particularly for use in a grove of orange trees, includes a portable carriage having a movable frame thereon. An arm is movable to and fro on the frame toward and away from an orange tree and is effective to penetrate into the interior of the tree. On the arm is a hook, preferably flexible, having a base portion secured to the arm and an outstanding terminal portion spaced from the arm. The hook is normally C-shaped and is resilient. In operation, the arm with the terminal hook...

A bush berry harvester for berries growing on bushes in a row has a carriage movable along the row and carrying a pair of tine grids movable in unison up and down to a selected elevation and movable in unison transversely toward and away from the bushes and also oscillatable in opposite phase in a fore and aft direction at variable amplitude and frequency to dislodge berries onto a conveyor leading to a berry cooler on the carriage.

A deformeter for testing the firmness of fruit as an indication of its maturity includes a support for an individual fruit effective to convey the fruit to a testing location, at which sensors are urged to contact the fruit surface lightly, preferably on a diameter, to establish a datum position. The sensors are then urged to contact the fruit with a predetermined, deforming pressure. At least one more sensor moves correspondingly into the fruit to establish an indented position. The two sensor ...

A robotic cultivator is provided for automatically positioning cultivation tools relative to a centerline of a plant row. The cultivator comprises a video camera for gathering visual information about plants in a plant row. A frame grabber is then utilized to generate a digitized image of the visual information. A computer then manipulates the visual information to determine a centerline of the plant row. Finally, a positioning device moves the cultivation tools based upon the current position o...