Once seen as the answer to the rising costs and occasional shortages of labor for manual picking of citrus fruit, mechanical harvesting has reached a "stalemate," Fritz Roka, a University of Florida agricultural economist at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center, told the Citrus Harvesting Research Advisory Council Tuesday.

"Growers haven't seen enough of a price difference between mechanical harvesting and handpicking," he told The Ledger.

Others, including harvesting companies, machine manufacturers and the juice processors who buy most of Florida's citrus fruit, also struggle with cost issues, Roka said.

Meanwhile the chemical known as CMNP, the acronym for its chemical name, has met nearly all the requirements for full registration at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said Taw Richardson, CEO of AgroSource Inc., the Mountainside, N.J., company managing the registration.

By loosening the stem-fruit bond, CMNP causes the citrus to fall easily, making machine harvesting more efficient and less damaging to the trees.

AgroSource expects to submit the registration application by mid-year, he said. The EPA typically takes two years to decide on registration, which would make CMNP readily available on the market.

SOURCE: FRESHPLAZA