18—Lancaster Farming, Saturday, December 12,1970 Machine Eyed to Revive Eastern Shore Tomato Industry A new haivestei looks like it is the answer to pulling the eastern shoie tomato farming industiy out of a long decline and into a stiff competitive posi tion with other tomato giowing areas of the countiy After two years of research; Geneial Kinetics, Inc, thiough The following icport by Food Technology Cm po’-p -tion of Heston, Va, explains how and why eastern shore farmeis are switching to mechanical tomato harvest ing While vegetable produc tion, is not among the lead ing faim entei puses in Pennsylvania, the tomato crop is among the most im poitant of the vegetable ei ops giown The Pennsyl vania Department of Agncul tme lepoitecl 3,000 acies of tomatoes giown statewide ioi the fiesh maiket and 9,- 300 acres foi processing in 1969 its subsidiaiy Food Technology Coipoiation of Reston, Virginia, built and tested a tiactoi ear- ned tomato haivester designed for the model ate sized opeia tions which chaiacteuze the Delawaie, Maiyland and Vn ginia (DelMaiVa) eastern shoie area The aiea’s typical tomato faimer plants up to 100 acies of tomatoes and lelies largely on raigiatoiy labor to hand-pick his ci op Using the FTC harvester the faimei can pick four acies of tomatoes a dav To hand-pick the same acieage of tomatoes m cne day lequues 30 to 40 field hands who can hanest about 12 tons of tomatoes fiom each acie Using the new FTC ma chine, the same acieage his viclded twice the haivest oi 25 tons pei acic This past season dm in 3 Au gust and Seplemnei, a FTC unit was opeiated on the Geoige A Hoisey & Sons Faim, neai La in el, Delawaie 4ccoi cling to Robeit Hoisey, one of the two VA/lIM POWER Immmmm—mammmmm TRACTOR DRIVEN ALTERNATORS ■anaHKMB INSIST on a FREE 7 , r „ TrT ,„ T „ WINPOWER „ pUR DEMONSTRATION F a?a l tSc-? nm/rSo 3 at YOUR Farm AGAINSI POWER Before You Buy ANY EXPERIENcId PEOPLE TlaClor DllV “ AlteniBtor INSTALL & SERVICE fi I P J I CALL NOW J- J EtlWardS 1 Ait.u SALES, Manager RP ELECTROMEC natural gas WfM~\ GASOLINE | Electromechanical Service DIESEL Route 222, Ephrata, Pa. 17522 ENGINE GEN. n. /t*rt ry\ hfOO fHM a SETS TO Phone (717) 733-7911 200,000 WATTS Electric Motor • Generator • Power Tool Specialists The Food Technology Corporation’s new tomato harvester moves through the field, snips off the entire plant under the soil, carries the vine up and back onto a rubber coated mechanism which shakes the fruit loose biotheis who opeiates the farm, the haivestei supplies the solu tion to two critical pioblems, laboi and pioduction It allows the smallei opeiatoi to mciease pioduction without compound mg the shortage ot field labor The FTC unit is considei ed economical costing half the puce of cthci harvesters Two 01 th.so people aie leqiured to opeiate the unit the tiactoi duvei and one 01 two momtois who distai cl undei npe toma toes oi an occasional weed fi om the haivested fiuit Piesently, theie aie about 11,000 aues of tomatoes ha>- . WORLDS LARGEST MFG. OF TRACTOR-DRIVEN ALTERNATORS PTO Units Available From 7 KW to 60 KW >0 Year Warranty POWER WHEN YOU NEED IT MOST 1800 RPM vested in the DelMaiVa area economical, there were about The drop in tomato production About 20 yeais ago, when field 63.000 acies ot tomatoes grown reflects the unfavorable econo labor was moie plentiful and in the same thiee-state area (Continued on Page 19) There Is NO shortage of Seed Coin here!' This is to notify all interested Pennsylvania Farmers that DOEELERS have completed their 1970 Seed Corn Harvest and the crop is the biggest ever! ! Estimates are lor 40% more seed for sale this coming season than last 1 ! It’s great to raise seed corn in Pennsylvania in the year of the “Big Blight”! 1 QUALITY Seed quality of the new crop is outstanding This is impor tant as blight damaged seed fields tend to pioduce light weight, chaffy kernels that have low vitality l 1 BLIGHT RESISTANCE In regard to blight resistant and tolerant hybnds for ’7l planting, DOEBLERS aie happy to report that 60% of their 1970 crop was fully detasseled (These hybrids are veiy resis tant to race “T” of the Southern Com Leaf Blight) In addition, DOEB LERS have a gioup of hybnds that have shown excellent tolerance to the new race of Com Leaf Blight YIELD Repoits aie beginning to come in on outstanding yields of DOEB LERS hybuds Some measured yields aie in excess of 200 bu dry shelled coin per acre DOEBLERS hybuds have always excelled in top yields l 1 56# BUSHELS Yes we aie still packing 56# bushels —no “little bushels” heie 1 1 ALSO the puce increase for '7l averages less than s%'' SPECIAL DOEBLERS have seed for the new plateless planters in most hybud numbeis Also theie is a good supply of the new high piotem, Hylycme hybuds this yeai DOEBLERS PENNSYLVANIA HYBRIDS DOE BLEB S HYsMCSrI Qmh w jin PENNSYLVANIA ! ■ i The tomatoes are then carried by conveyor to the truck which moves alongside the tractor-carried harvester. The fruit-free vines are discarded over the back end of the unit. PLUS Sold by 248 dealers in Pennsylvania T. A. DOEBLER and SON Growers, Processors and Distributors DOEBLERS PENNSYLVANIA HYBRIDS R.D. 1 JERSEY SHORE, PA. 17740
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