Mechanization Efforts in Fruit Harvesting

Labor is an essential and costly input in fruit production since many cultivation practices (e.g., harvesting, pruning, thinning, fertilizing, and chemical spraying) are still mainly performed by hand (Gallardo and Sauer, 2018; Karkee, Silwal, and Davidson, 2018). Labor expenditures comprise about 38.5% of the variable costs in fruit production in the United States (Castillo et al., 2021).