Mushroom growers face the constant challenge of recruiting and retaining staff to harvest crops. Labour accounts for one-third of a mushroom farm’s overall cost of production. The current method of harvesting mushrooms consists of one-handed picking, manually cutting the mushroom stalk, placing the mushrooms into the punnet, weighing the punnet to ensure it reaches the correct weight specification, labelling the punnet and placing the punnet into the crate. This process has been in place since mushroom production began. However, as the availability of labour tightens, this means the industry must look at streamlining the process to gain harvesting efficiency.
Teagasc Mushroom Advisor, Donal Gernon, attempts to address this issue by hosting a mushroom picking technology webinar series featuring some of the world’s leading companies in the area of mushroom picking innovations. The webinars are exclusive to all mushroom growers and stakeholders in Ireland. Some of the interesting technologies include GTL’s ‘tilting shelf system’, Christiaen’s ‘drawer system’ and Axis Technologies’ ‘mushroom processing unit’. All these technologies are aimed at reducing labour costs by introducing two-handed picking on to conveyors which cut the stalk and transport the mushroom to the packing area. These systems are aiming to double the speed of picking and ultimately reduce dependence on recruiting and retaining harvesters.
