OCR Text |
Show Spud Harvest Study Would Cut Damages Preliminary work to determine the points in potato harvesting and handling where bruising injury occurs, oc-curs, with a view to developing methods for avoiding such damage, was started in North Dakota last fall, Perry V. Hemphill, associate agricultural economist of the North Dakota experiment station, reports. A survey was made by the experiment ex-periment station in cooperation with regional potato laboratory in East Grant Forks. Samples were taken immediately after digging, from the picker sacks standing in the field, from sacks on the truck at the warehouse before unloading, and from the bins immediately af- j ter unloading. It was noted that the percentage of bruising increased during each operation. After digging it was found 11 per cent of the potatoes were bruised, after picking 17 per cent were bruised, after trucking the percentage bruised went up to 18, and after binning 41 per cent were bruised. It was noted an increase in-crease of 23 per cent may be due to the binning process alone. |