How do you harvest your tall fruit trees?

What permaculture methods do you use for tall standard apple trees, pears, etc?

If you have a large farm taking a ladder to each tree seems very time consuming

I have seen a topless IBC on pallet forks on a tractor used to lift a pair of volunteers to tree level...

Seemed legit until someone climbed a ladder set inside the IBC...

There is a focus in some areas of permaculture to train the growth of trees, up to and including pruning, to keep them from getting as high as you describe. This won't help you with existing trees.

The safest method is probably a nice small cherry-picker. I think that I like the idea of helping trees to grow up and out rather than more or less as close to hand-picking level as possible, literal vertical gardening. Using a little electric cherry-picker with a hydraulic lift is probably the best way to access higher levels of trees.

Some will say that anything they can't reach is for the birds and wildlife, and some people let the tops provide windfalls after harvest season, for chickens or pigs or whatever.

And the most interesting idea, though dependent on the varietal (has to be late-bearing), is that of leaving the fruit to mature on the tree until after the first frost, and making ice cider with it, along the same lines as ice wine, but with apple as the base. But in that case, you'll definitely not want to be climbing up a ladder.

-CK

I believe Sepp holzer runs his animals under the tall trees to eat the fallen fruit.  And so he gets the value from the animals when the time is right.

I pick with an extendible fruit picker.  Mine extends 13' so I can get stuff about 18' off the ground.  It's slow though and a hell of a shoulder workout.  Keep the bucket 13' away from you on the ground so when you fill the basket you can lower it down to the bucket and let the fruit tumble out.  It works fine for homestead scale harvesting but wouldn't work for a market garden or farm.

I like the idea of having tall trees to use the space more wisely. As you say vertical gardening.

I suppose there is the option of having nut trees as the main trees that grow to those heights in the centre of the guilds and having smaller Apple and fruit trees under the canopy of the nuts.

Am I right in thinking nuts can be harvested with a net under the tree and let the fall naturally or does this not work?

I like your tool that picks the fruit I am wanting to setup a large commercial farm though and I am trying to figure out how I would manage a farm if it was to be run as a permaculture farm. Hand picking 100 trees myself would be one hell of a chore for little return considering the sale price of apples.

Ahh, so you don't currently have a bunch of standard apple trees to pick?  That gives you some options.  Have you read about Mark Shepard's agricultural systems?  He has a permaculture mindset to large scale farming that he discusses in his book (Restoration Agriculture).

You can just let nuts fall to the ground. There are some simple devices to pick them up. I don’t know if they work. My trees are still young, so I haven’t needed one yet. http://nutwizard.com/  They sell these at farm supply stores here

Last fall I collected about 20 shopping bags of apples to make juice from. I fabricated an apple picker from some pvc electrical conduit. I softened the end (about 1 ft) with a heat gun, flattened it, and formed it into a hook shape.

I then cut a v shaped groove in the end with the idea that the apple stalk would fit in the groove and I can pull the apple off the tree. Since I was juicing I wasn't concerned with bruising.

It worked really well, and I was surprised how little bruising actually happened. But it was really slow. In the end I used the hook to shake the branch and dozens of apples fell to the ground all at once.

Next fall I am going to add an extension to my apple picker using another length of electrical conduit. I'll fabricate a locking mechanism by cutting an L shaped groove in one end, and inserting a screw in the other that will fit into the groove.

last fall (2018) we have hung some nets under our two walnut trees, just like they do under almond and olive trees
that allowed us to harvest 90-95% or more of the walnuts
The "nutwizard" will only work if you have a very short trimmed lawn under the trees, else it will only be a source of frustration
last year I have also in time harvested green, unripe walnuts, soaked them for a whole winter in a mixture of wine, lemons and herbs
the result is a very Vermouth like "aperitif"
should any of you consider to do so, time is rapidly fading to harvest green unripe walnuts, give or take one month away
I also have bought a similar "fruit picker" to pick apples and pears high from our trees
just need to find and buy the best available expandible handle to reach up high enough
I have drunk a lot of wine this winter, and kept all modern bottles with airtight screw caps for next fall,
to bottle our own apple juice and, who knows, our own apple cider, maybe even our own distilled "Calvados"
greets
Frank

When I was the foreman of a ranch in NM, I had a moderate orchard of apples, pears, and peaches to pick. I used the ordinary commercial fruit-picking ladders, much wider at the bottom and with a pole attached near the top which extends as a support. They are far more stable than they look, and with a fruit-picking bag over my shoulder I could pick a lot of fruit fast. I've never found a better way to do it.

Marketing fruit will bring in a lot more money if you process it. Slice and dry it, or can it as purée. A commercial kitchen may be required in which to do the processing, in order to legally sell processed fruit, but these are usually not difficult of access, depending on what is near you. Also, fruit will keep over the winter if you store it properly, in a conventional root cellar or a more modern temperature-controlled unit.

The trees can be easily left or minorly pruned to develop the shape of a ladder. Use the tree itself to get on the tree. Also leaving some for the birds, I totally agree. There is so much that birds will give in return. Mental things like their cuteness and singing and practical like their manure, eating pests, or pooping of seeds of other trees that WILL sprout because they have been through the bird's digestive system. Finally, the higher a tree gets the deeper its roots go in the ground bringing up humidity and nutrients from the subsoil. So everyone please leave your saws down...Let nature thrive by the human doing less. Thank you

james buttler wrote:What permaculture methods do you use for tall standard apple trees, pears, etc?
If you have a large farm taking a ladder to each tree seems very time consuming

Depending on whether you can spare some of the crop, I would invite the chickens to do the "cleanup" of the orchard. That is certainly the easiest and cheapest way to deal with high trees. The orchard will need cleaning after the fruit are off, and chickens will do a wonderful job of that: rotting fruit invite all kinds of pests, so that is the plan. I have mostly semi-dwarf fruit trees, so I don't have the problem, although a number of my mulberry trees, which I could have trained as a bush, I didn't. They are just starting to give, and in a few years, I'll place large tarps under them and shake them.
Some trees, like cherries can be trained to weep when they are young, so that most of the crop is within reach. Or they may be coppiced every few years. We don't have to harvest every last fruit, so yes, a number of fruit invite birds. It is not a problem: We like song birds and still have more fruit than we can use. My husband and I are in our 70s, so I don't see myself climbing ladders to harvest the last apple any more. If we had vigorous neighbors close by, we might invite their kids to share the crop with us: They do the harvesting and they get half of the crop in payment. [Although that is fraught with perils: what if a kid gets hurt on your property, right?]
I have selected good trees and weed trees: The best trees get all our care. The other ones tend to invite pests, but while the pests are on them, they leave the good trees alone. (This assumes that birds will on their own select the weed trees for themselves, right? Blackbirds are in a category all by themselves: They will pick at one fruit to test it, [always the best ones!] then another and another. They are a real pain, and let's face it, shiny balls, noisy crackly things, the owls, the scarecrow are only effective for a short while.

Dillon Nichols wrote:I have seen a topless IBC on pallet forks on a tractor used to lift a pair of volunteers to tree level...

Seemed legit until someone climbed a ladder set inside the IBC...

Works for me... lol

james buttler wrote:What permaculture methods do you use for tall standard apple trees, pears, etc?

If you have a large farm taking a ladder to each tree seems very time consuming

I prune the tops of the trees so I can harvest everything from a 10 foot ladder.
If we had more trees, such as a full blown orchard business, I would probably espalier the trees so I didn't have to leave the ground to harvest all the fruits.
One of the big things we have to think about on Buzzard's Roost is aging and still keeping everything manageable for us as we get older.

Redhawk

I dislike the fruit pickers, having found them to cause more trouble than they solve.  I've got a couple tall pear trees that I pick by climbing and picking.  But there are some fruits that are too high up to reach by climbing, and my method there is to get as high up as I can and shake the tree, causing the ripe fruits to fall.  There's usually a little damage to the fruits, but they're still perfectly usable.

I have 100 year old apple trees but I also have a 40 foot long extension pole from my janitorial days. so I can reach some fruit for fresh sale. The picker has a wite hop and a cloth bag. where the wire comes together at the handle that screws on the extension pole is a small pruner that I can pull a cord to snip off the stem.
The original poster it seems is asking for theoretical ideas for a permaculture plan that avoids the problem without machinery like is used in modern spindle pruned orchard that uses a wagon with a lift with 2 men on each side and storage for the picked apples in between.  It is also used for pruning in the winter time.
The point is plant and train the trees according to your harvest plan. Can you terrace a hillside so the top of the tree can be harvested from the terrace above?   Young fruit tree growth is easy to bend so train it for easy harvest as Red Hawk suggested. one of the old trees had a branch a foot in diameter and 20 feet long and 10 feet up which shaded windows in the summer. You could open the windows to harvest the fruit. It failed in a snow storm because of poor management in the past. Some one cut large branches off at the top so the center rotted and was eaten away by wood borers. The tree still lives on as a hollow trunk with a small tree at the top.
I think the ideal tree is a huge fan shape at the bottom and then a single center leader that is allowed to reach the trees natural height but not width of branches. when a tree has its natural height pruning it back produces less  sending up vertical growth to try to restore the lost height when pruned. This results in having many easterly reachable fruit and only a few high ones
For more Ideas go to Fruit Growers News to see the orchard designs and machines that have been developed to answer this question.
Harvester described above

Baldwin Apple Ladder Company in Brooks, Maine still makes traditional wooden apple ladders.

I know first hand that they buy quality logs from area lndowners, hire local workers, and that the owner himself is quite Permie-Like. I say that because he plays the traditional American Indian drums at fairs and parades, and does a lot for the community with his profits.

It is a sound place to buy a tradional apple ladder if people need a ethical source.

I was looking into getting something like this. It looks like it would take longer to harvest, but could provide greater precision and care to harvest without damage to the fruit tree. It's pricey too, but might be worth it if it's durable and there's a lot of future fruit harvests down the road.

Has anyone used anything like this or know of a cheaper or better one?



http://www.territorialseed.com/product/Long_Reach_Fruit_Harvester/garden_tools

I'm years away from this problem, but I've been anticipating it anyhow. Anyone tried a long PVC pipe with some sort of claw on the end? Seems the pipe, if held at a bit of an angle, would allow the fruit to roll down with minimal damage?

Another thought is a plastic or canvas chute attached to such a picking device. Think the chutes contsruction workers use on tall buildings to throw down waste without it breaking windows or hitting people walking below. Perhaps attached to a receptical? Or am I overthinking?

My other option is a rolling platform that can move from tree to tree. I know I've seen those used.

When my trees get out of "range" or I am not able to climb the ladder.
I just cut a 2 Liter pop bottle and attach it with duct tape (gorilla tape) to a telescopic aluminum pole (painters use them to get to high walls with a roller). I can harvest up to 3 fruits at a time with my homemade picker.
The design is on MEN, really simple to make and works great plus I had all the pieces to make it already so it was also free.

I think this is what Bryant is referring to:
https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/how-to-make-a-fruit-picker-zb0z1211zmar

Aluminum orchard ladder is the way to go.  

I ended up building some high density trellis.  5 rows 14' apart and 3' between trees.  There are 5 apple, then 5 peach, then 5 pair, and then 5 cherry trees in each row.  This gives a group of 25 of each tree.
There is plenty of room to drive a full size truck down the rows.  I have hand harvested hay down the rows a few times.  Free range chickens work well.
It was a 3 year investment till we got good harvests.  Maintenance of the trees to picking the fruit is easy (wife is short and uses a stool sometimes).  The only Issue I have had was fruit fly's in the cherry's, but this is common with out spraying them.  They say these systems last 20 to 25 years depending on varieties of trees and maintenance.  

Why couldn't a person build a steel ladder for the front end loader, or three point hitch of a tractor?

Instead of picking up and moving the tractor all the time, a person would just have to drive the tractor to the next spot?

I thought about doing this for my log loader. Instead of putting on my grapple, or backhoe bucket, I would just mount on a steel ladder and in that way, using many positions possible with my boom, I could  position it where I wanted too. I came up with this idea because I have a 2 story home, and need to replace the roof shingles. Staging requires moving it all the time, yet a rented manlift would be expensive. For what I would have in costs for one day of manlift rental, I could build a boom and have it forever.

This is a fruit picker I got as a Chistmas present and filmed this video on how I put it together and a brief overview of its features.

Here's the link where I got mine.

https://www.amazon.com/Harrms-Lightweight-Telescoping-Equipment-Fruits%EF%BC%885-5FT%EF%BC%89/dp/B07Z68RZZJ/ref=mp_s_a_1_7?keywords=13%2Bfruit%2Bpicker&qid=1574867577&sr=8-7&th=1&psc=1

It said it was telescopic, but it was actually made of a few metal pieces that screwed together, which actually gave it a very sturdy feel. I was able to assemble it quickly and easily with just a flat head screwdriver.

A taller person could possibly reach up to 20 ft or higher from the ground and about 18 ft for a shorter person, after factoring in the height of the person and their arm reach.

I really like that it can be adjusted to just 2 ft long if needed, as it can be more easily maneuvered into tight places if space is a concern.

The materials seem durable and made of good quality from what I can tell from just this initial inspection.

I'm excited to hopefully put it to the test soon and harvest some tasty fruit!

if you look up:

cut and hold fruit picker

there are poles for picking delicate fruits
the video i saw them in has a crew with some people getting ground level stuff with hand pruners and others with varying length cut and hold pickers
each person concentrating on what is easily picked with their length of tool

I wish I would have kept a video of a guy harvesting coconuts. He was using a hook to pull the fruit into a basket but the basket had a long fabric tube that reached the ground.  The coconut would roll down the tube into another larger basket on the ground.  

Dennis Bangham wrote:I wish I would have kept a video of a guy harvesting coconuts. He was using a hook to pull the fruit into a basket but the basket had a long fabric tube that reached the ground.  The coconut would roll down the tube into another larger basket on the ground.  

I tried to find a video of that on youtube but I failed.

I did, however, find one of using monkeys to harvest them!

Hans Quistorff wrote:
I think the ideal tree is a huge fan shape at the bottom and then a single center leader that is allowed to reach the trees natural height but not width of branches. when a tree has its natural height pruning it back produces less  sending up vertical growth to try to restore the lost height when pruned. This results in having many easterly reachable fruit and only a few high ones

I am not sure if i vizualize this correctly, does this sketch represent what you mean?

And if so, how do you prune the sideway-branches of this natural-height-central leader?
You most likely cannot reach it by ladder as the fan-shaped lower crown prevents this.

Or am i totally on the wrong track? I just have never seen a tree shaped like this anywhere,
so i am not even sure if i grasped your explanation?

I keep all my trees close to around 12 foot tall. My orchard spacing is close and narrow and so shorter trees work best for me. Smaller fruits on bigger trees like Autumn olives can be shaken off though.

In our backyard, we have a Bartlett pear tree, and a Bosc pear tree.
The Bosc pear tree produces fruit that ripens best if harvested before the pear fall off the tree, then ripened at room temperature till ripe per the soft neck test.
The Bartlett pear are best harvested when they fall off the tree, or are about to fall off the tree. As the season progresses and the pear start to yellow, the pear fruit are checked for ripeness daily, by lifting each fruit until they are nearly horizontal. If the whole stem pops of the tree, it is ripe, and was just harvested. If a fruit doesn't pop off the tree, it is left on the tree to be checked each subsequent day until it is ripe and pops off the tree.
Since the Bartlett pears are checked only once per day, many pear become ripe and fall off the tree in the interim. Fortunately, there are a whole bunch of thickly growing rushes beneath the pear tree. They resemble Horsetail, but without bushy tops, and are evergreen. They stand up to 4' tall, and their stems do a great job of catching falling pear, preventing bruising. They also make it hard for passing raccoon to get to the fallen pear.
Perhaps there are other plants that can grow beneath a tree that could catch and protect falling fruit. Any ideas?
See attached pictures for examples of the rushes talent at catching pear.

Nathan Chapman wrote: They also make it hard for passing raccoon to get to the fallen pear.
.

That is a pretty fascinating concept for me...we've had quite a few raccoons coming around and eating our pears over the last several years.

I'm curious if it will be any better this year since we have a great pyrenees for the first time (except last year when she was a very young pup). But I'll have to keep this in mind as a potential idea to rescue a few pears and maybe other fruits too once we get more stuff growing...

Bryant RedHawk wrote:If we had more trees, such as a full blown orchard business, I would probably espalier the trees so I didn't have to leave the ground to harvest all the fruits.
One of the big things we have to think about on Buzzard's Roost is aging and still keeping everything manageable for us as we get older.

I have just been reading, "Grow a Little Fruit Tree" by Ann Ralph and the whole book is about starting and keeping fruit trees 5 feet high or so for easy management and picking. It allows people grow more varieties in the same amount of space so they can plan ripening for continuous fresh fruit over a long season. Key to her success is summer pruning while fruit is being produced, so the tree puts its strength into the fruit, rather than in growing more branches.

On my current land, I wouldn't take her approach as we would have to spend a huge amount of time improving fencing to exclude the deer. As is, the one espalier tree I bought as a bit of an experiment for a location where I didn't want more shade, has repeatedly been assaulted by the deer despite my amateur efforts to keep them out.

Other factors are whether you have animals to feed. We tend towards a summer drought that extends through Sept and sometimes most of October. Surplus fruit would have been the traditional way of getting farm animals through that period, as the grass is dormant then.

Jay Angler wrote:

Bryant RedHawk wrote:If we had more trees, such as a full blown orchard business, I would probably espalier the trees so I didn't have to leave the ground to harvest all the fruits.
One of the big things we have to think about on Buzzard's Roost is aging and still keeping everything manageable for us as we get older.

I have just been reading, "Grow a Little Fruit Tree" by Ann Ralph and the whole book is about starting and keeping fruit trees 5 feet high or so for easy management and picking. It allows people grow more varieties in the same amount of space so they can plan ripening for continuous fresh fruit over a long season. Key to her success is summer pruning while fruit is being produced, so the tree puts its strength into the fruit, rather than in growing more branches.

On my current land, I wouldn't take her approach as we would have to spend a huge amount of time improving fencing to exclude the deer. As is, the one espalier tree I bought as a bit of an experiment for a location where I didn't want more shade, has repeatedly been assaulted by the deer despite my amateur efforts to keep them out.

Other factors are whether you have animals to feed. We tend towards a summer drought that extends through Sept and sometimes most of October. Surplus fruit would have been the traditional way of getting farm animals through that period, as the grass is dormant then.

I got lots of apple trees, semi dwarf, thinking I'd get the best of both worlds, but even the semi-dwarf are a bit tall to harvest all from the ground. I'm not sure how to prune them to keep them around 5-6 ft, so that's my limitation. If I have to, just for the choice fruit, I'll use a ladder. Most of the time, I'll shake the tree.
(Which reminds me: Does anyone know hot to make a contraption like to shake nuts from a tree?
I have mulberries that fall off quite easily, but I'd prefer an automatic tree shaker. I place 2 tarps side by side under the mulberry trees and I hit the branches. But that can be a bit destructive and then the fruit still have to be cleaned by hand...
I make an effort to keep the ground under the trees very clean. If there aren't too many fallen fruit, I'll pick those to make jams/ jellies, keeping only the best for storage. Eventually, I'll send all the chickens in the orchard to do the final cleanup. (So, of course, I don't spray!)
The main orchard has a fence adapted from prison yards: A vertical post, of course, then a bent rod. (a 3 ft rebar, really).
The bottom 1ft of the rod is attached to the vertical part with stainless steels zip ties.
The rods, leaning outwards, are then covered with some 4 ft fencing cut in half lengthwise and also fastened with stainless steel zip ties.
The total height may be no more than 6 ft, which would be easy for a deer to jump, but a deer has trouble dealing with depth because its eyes ae on the sides of its head. Plus, when I cut the fencing in half, I make sure to put the sharp points upwards. They have not challenged the fence, but we have quite a few deer. I'm eyeing a big 6 pointer for this fall...
So far, so good, but I must make sure to close the gate!!!

Whatever you do don't follow my example.  I won't tell you what I do, but I do own ladders and a fruit picker...