| The aim of this research was to evaluate three types of commonly used hand-held olive harvesters in small olive farms (pulsed motion double head olive harvester, hook type hand-held olive harvester and pneumatic comb olive harvester) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The specific objectives were to (a) determine the values of some olive plant parameters including physical-mechanical properties of fruit-stem system, natural frequency of the olive fruit-stem system and suitable shaking stroke), (b) establish and determine the values of the evaluation criteria which included machine productivity, fruit removal percentage, fruit damage, specific consumed energy and olive harvesting cost, (c) determine the quality characteristic for each criterion, (d) assign the... |
