Advanced Raisin Harvesting 101

I'm sure this is going to be captivating blogging for some of you, but I personally love this part of living on the farm and I think it is amazing. I had actually planned on doing a series on the raisin harvest, but I didn't get my act together in time. I know you're upset. So, we will be reviewing the advanced or newer way of picking raisins. Grapevines are trained on two different levels, the high stuff that is still green is called the crown and does grow some grapes which get picked the old way and laid on paper trays (picture of kids doing this with Papa on first blog entry). But this year's crop of raisins will come from the vines that are trained onto the lower level which is the brown leaves. The grapes were cut from the plant so they would dry on the vine (DOV) into raisins.

This is the harvesting machine that goes down the rows and shakes the raisins off the vine. They took this method from the way they were harvesting berries and made it work for raisins too. The machine does all the sorting out of twigs and old vines, so shaking on the shaker isn't necessary. Those long tubes act like fingers that go in between all of the dried raisins and shake them onto the platform below, then they go up a tower on a conveyor belt and dropped into raisin bins being pulled on a trailer by a tractor in the next row.