Berry pickers: features of selection and use

Currants, raspberries, sweet cherries, cherries, gooseberries, blackberries – there are a lot of berries in summer cottages and backyards. And manually collecting them is tedious! Simple but quite effective devices come to the aid of the owners – berry pickers, which our advice site will tell you about.

On an industrial scale, on agricultural plantations, special equipment is used to collect berries – trailed and powerful self-propelled units, berry harvesters. They are, of course, indispensable for farmers, but they will not be used in an ordinary summer cottage and personal plot. Much more compact manual or vacuum pickers are used here. Let’s talk about them.

An ordinary manual berry picker looks, in fact, like a small suitcase or a box with a bucket. This berry collector consists of three parts:

• Handles to hold while working.
• Comb with teeth that will catch berries from the bush.
• Deep bucket, where the harvested berries will fall.

Everything is very simple, but effective, the speed of berry picking increases, judging by user reviews, several times.

Important! There are universal berry pickers, and there are special ones, for example, for cranberries, lingonberries, blueberries or cherries. They differ in the size of the teeth – for smaller and larger berries.

On average, the teeth of the berry picker are 10 to 20 centimeters long, the distance between them is from 3 to 5 millimeters.

All modern berry collectors are divided into metal and plastic according to the material of manufacture. The first ones weigh more, but they are very strong, they will not break during work, clinging to fairly hard branches of the bushes. Plastic lungs, but may not withstand heavy use. Finnish berry collectors stand out separately – they always have hard teeth, often with cutting elements, and a durable body.

The price, accordingly, will be different. A popular in our country plastic strawberry collector “Zhuk” with a shutter can be bought for 300 rubles, a regular metal one – for 600 rubles, and Finnish – for 900 rubles. In any case, the price is not high, given how much easier it will be for the owners of berry bushes to harvest.

Important! Wooden pickers are rare today. They weigh a lot, they cannot be compared in strength with metal. However, DIYers can make such devices out of anything, including plywood..

As you already understood, the main advantage of manual berry harvesters is to speed up the process and facilitate the work of the owners. There is a downside – the device can damage small twigs, tear off foliage, which will negatively affect the productivity of the bush in the future. So you should work as carefully as possible, without harming the plant..

When choosing a manual picker, you should consider:

• Type of berries, recall that there are special adaptations specifically for cranberries or blueberries.
• Manufacturing material.
• The presence of a shutter inside, which will not allow the already harvested berries to fall out.
• The presence of special holes at the bottom, from where completely unnecessary torn leaves and other debris will fall out.
• Convenience of the handle – it should not cause blisters.

There are much more expensive – from 20 thousand rubles – vacuum berry collectors. It’s like a garden vacuum cleaner, which is put on the shoulders and sucks berries into a hose with a special attachment, which enter a container with a volume of 12-15 liters. Everything is very fast, the owner only needs to direct the attachment towards the berries. Such devices are bought by those who often collect a large number of berries in the forests or have an extensive berry plantation at home..

The portal has already shown and told you what kind of pickers are for apples and other fruits growing high on the branches. They are often made by hand. You can also make berry pickers yourself.