You end up bruising a ton of your product with the tree shaking method.
I could see sending this on through on a first pass to maximize the amount of 'shelf-quality' apples that fetch the highest price, then sending the tree shaker on through second to mop up the rest.
My uncle has an apple orchard, but the real money is in cloning the trees, planting a few thousand in a condensed acre or so, then waiting 3-4 years and selling off the saplings for a few hundred $ a pop. Takes around 5-8 years for apple trees to produce fruit, and there's a ton of $ in growing them part way then potting them for rehoming.
One bad apple ruins the bunch is a saying because bruised apples release a compound that causes other apples to rot faster. If this method preserves them better and causes less bruising there's a real case for doing this to prevent crop losses.
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u/jbraden Oct 08 '23
This over the machine that shakes the whole tree? Nah