Asparagus spears harvested by the
Geiger-Lund asparagus
harvesters are the same quality as spears
harvested by a hand crew.
The
harvester is very gentle with the harvested spears and seldom damages
them.
Washington State University did a study comparing
the quality of hand harvested
asparagus and machine harvested asparagus
and found there was virtually no
difference between the two.
Here are some excerpts from the Washington State
University study.
"Asparagus was harvested in May and June and stored for
two weeks at 2 deg. C prior to quality evaluation. In all tests, three
samples of about 200 gm of asparagus were used. Attributes
recognized as having a major influence on asparagus quality
were evaluated for the mechanically and hand‐cut asparagus,
and included percent fresh weight loss, rate of respiration,
fiber analysis, and physical appearance of the spears."
DAMAGE EVALUATION
Fresh Weight
Since asparagus is comprised of about 92% water, it
requires immediate storage at cool temperatures to reduce
transpiration and water loss. There were minimal differences
detected in fresh weight loss, although the mechanical
harvester had slightly less weight loss than hand‐harvested
asparagus for both harvest periods.
The Geiger Lund
mechanically harvested asparagus lost about
3.0% and hand
cutting lost 3.5% in fresh weight in May (fig. 5).
Mechanical
harvesting of asparagus had no detrimental effect on weight
loss, and in fact, may even reduce the amount of weight loss.
Visual Appearance
The mechanically and hand‐harvested asparagus were
assessed for physical appearance after two weeks in cold
storage. Asparagus from both appeared free from symptoms
of deterioration. The spears of the mechanically and
hand‐harvested asparagus showed almost no signs of tip
feathering (fig. 7), tip rot, or stem basal decay. Spear color
was mostly green with the exception of slight yellowing of a
few spears, which indicates a small loss of chlorophyll. Spear
tips showed virtually no feathering and had dark green with
some purple color due to accumulation of anthocyanin.
