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Shipping device eases fruit transitBy JENNIFER MEESE, State News Staff Writer Roger Brook, a professor of agricultural engineering, uses special vegetable-shaped devices to record data about potatoes. The device measures the impact shipping has on potatoes. A bruised grapefruit can really sour your breakfast. When grapefruit is damaged in the packing process, mold can develop and spread to surrounding grapefruit, making the quality and appearance suffer. The grapefruit-shaped Impact Recording Device, developed by an MSU agriculture research service, helps keep grapefruit fresh and firm. Scientists at Texas A&M University’s Kingsville Citrus Center, who are trying to develop new ways to pack the sour fruit, toss the device in with grapefruit during the packing process. A computer chip inside it records places of impact where a real grapefruit could get bruised. The center has used the device for three months, said Bhimu Patil, a Texas A&M physiologist in charge of the project. The device measures velocity change during the packing process to pinpoint potentially damaging bumps. Patil said grapefruit is damaged in many points of the packing process, especially when it is dropped onto conveyor belts. “(The recording device) will tell us any major bruises happening in the packing shed,” he said. “On the conveyor belt, there are some places where there is great height. If we can identify (where the fruit is getting damaged), we can add padding material where the places are.” The devices, developed by the USDA-Agriculture Research Service at MSU, are not only used for grapefruit. They have helped keep many fruits and vegetables and hockey and football helmets safer during packing processes. A small Impact Recording Device was also inserted in an eye. “They were basically doing an impact study to the skull,” said Mike Schweda, service technician for Techmark Inc., which sells the devices. “They apply to almost anything.” Schweda said the standard devices are spheres with 2 1/2-inch to 3 1/2-inch diameters, but they vary in size and could be oval or rectangular. MSU researchers have worked with the technology for about seven years, said Roger Brook, a professor of agricultural engineering. Brook has used the device mainly on potatoes, but he has also used it on peppers, onions and tomatoes. “Our understanding of how to use it has certainly improved over the years,”
he said. The computer chip inside the device keeps track of time, so it can identify
not only the impacts but where they happened in the process, Brook said. It also records
the magnitude of the impact, he said. The data is downloaded into a computer that analyzes
and plots the places of impact. |
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