[Rural Revitalization] China's first camellia fruit harvester enters industrialization

　　On December 21, Changsha, Hunan, Central South University of Forestry and Technology and an agricultural equipment company signed a contract for the transformation of camellia fruit harvesting technological achievements, which marked the ability to climb hills and climb hurdles, but also to achieve high efficiency and precision "only picking fruits without damaging flowers" China’s first camellia fruit harvester officially entered the industrialization stage.

　　Camellia oleifera is one of the four largest woody oil plants in the world, and it is also a unique oil plant species in China, with a planting area of ​​more than 68 million mu.

For a long time, the picking of camellia oleifera fruit has completely relied on manual labor, and "difficult to hire people and high labor costs" has increasingly become a painful and difficult point restricting the development of the camellia industry.

The mechanized picking of camellia fruit faces multiple difficulties such as the same period of flowers and fruits, short stalks, large binding force, and random and variable tree shapes. In 2020, it was selected by the Chinese Society of Forestry as one of the "Top Ten Forestry and Grass Science Issues and Engineering Technical Problems".

　　As early as 2008, Li Lijun, the dean of the School of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering of Central South University of Forestry and Technology, led a team to start related research.

In December 2019, Li Lijun’s team’s “Research on Key Technologies and Equipment for Camellia Fruit Picking” passed the result appraisal and was recognized as reaching the international advanced level.

In the following two years, the team further carried out research on machine lightweight, miniaturization, and engineering technology, and realized "integration of collection and picking into one machine. As long as one person operates remotely, it can complete a camellia tree in one minute." "The tea fruit harvesting work", the picking efficiency of a machine is equivalent to 30 manual labor.

　　The industrialization of the Camellia oleifera fruit harvester of Central South University of Forestry and Technology will fill the gap in the "inorganic availability" market in China's Camellia oleifera harvesting process.

(Reporter Xu Zhixiong's video source from Central South University of Forestry and Technology)

Editor in charge: [Tian Boqun]