Mobile Mechanized Hops Harvester

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Submitted by chriscallahanuvm on Mon, 06/10/2013 - 8:09pm

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Side view showing a bine being stripped (harvested).

Stripped and sorted hops coming off the machine.

This mobile hops harvester was developed to bridge a gap for nascent Northeast US hops growers between hand picking and larger investment in a stationary harvester. It was developed by a team of farmers and brewers along with an agronomist and an engineer. Support for the project came from the Vermont Agency of Agriculture, Food and Markets, the Massachusetts Department of Agricultural Resources, the USDA Specialty Crops Program and UVM Extension.

Power is provided by a PTO-based hydraulic pump that drives hydraulic motors with local speed controls. The max rate of harvest to date has been 120 bines per hour. A set of design prints and bill of materials is provided to allow relatively easy replication of the design. Please see the appendix from 2012 with important design revisions.

A video summary of the machine is available above and on the UVM Extension NW Crops and Soils Team YouTube channel. Design documents are available on the UVM Extension NW Crops and Soils Instructional Wiki following a brief registration form. Please share your revisions and adaptations of the machine with us.