From Our Orchard to your table.
Our Valley is full of rich green orchards. |
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Cherry harvest starts around the end of June. After cherries we harvest apricots, peaches, pears and finally apples. The last apples are picked at the end of October. |
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Jorge Pedraza picking Bartlett pears. Jorge, and several others, have worked at our orchard for over twenty years. |
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Picking is hard work. A bin of pears weighs about 1000 pounds. A good picker will pick eight or more bins each day. That's four tons of fruit! Pickers must be careful to avoid bruising or puncturing the fruit. Fruit damaged during picking cannot be sold. |
Fruit must be picked at just the right time.
Our quality control staff constantly checks the fruits internal quality. Soluable solids, temperature, starches and brix (a measurement of sweetness) is monitored. When the fruit meets the proper quality criteria it's picked.
Full bins of fruit are carefully moved out of the orchard. The tractor driver must drive slowly to avoid bruising or puncture damage to the fruit.
Long trip out of the orchard.
Some parts of the orchard are a long way from the loading dock. Tractor trips in and out of the orchard can be long and slow. Another responsibility for the tractor driver is placing empty bins ahead of each picker. Hauling out full bins and returning with empty bins keeps the tractors run constantly from sun up to sun down.
Our picking crew starts as soon as it's light enough to see the fruit on the trees.
After a few hours of work we have a load. Twenty-four full bins of fruit stacked three high waiting to be picked up and delivered to our co-operative warehouse in Peshastin, Washington.
After the fruit is picked it must be graded and packed.
A fleet of carrier trucks takes the fruit from the orchard to cold storage.
Fruit packing begins as soon as the fruit arrives at the plant.
The fruit is washed, dryed, and sorted by size and grade. Packers take fruit off the sorting line and gently place them into padded boxes. Each box weighs about 40 pounds.
Fruit packing begins as soon as the fruit arrives at the plant.
The fruit is washed, dryed, and sorted by size and grade. Packers take fruit off the sorting line and gently place them into padded boxes. Each box weighs about 40 pounds.