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Abstract
Excerpts from the report: Most of the potatoes grown in the fall crop areas of the United States are placed in storages immediately after harvest. The storage period may range from a few weeks to several months. Moving the crop from storage to the packing line, where it is prepared for market, involves the handling of millions of hundredweights of potatoes annually. Operators of storages and packinghouses are interested in minimizing the cost of handling these large volumes of potatoes. These handling costs may be held to a minimum by improving methods of operation to effectively utilize the available labor, equipment, and facilities at each particular plant. The purpose of this study was to: (1) Determine the comparative costs of moving different volumes of table stock potatoes from selected types of storages to the packing line at different rates of supply using specified methods of handling and equipment; (2) measure the relative efficiency of the handling methods as affected by volume handled, rate of supply, and storage layout; and (3) determine the kinds and amounts of equipment required for each method in each type of storage.