What hand-picking olives really costs, and when a harvester pays off

The question always comes the same way: “how much does an olive harvester cost?”. It is the wrong question, or rather, it is the second one. The first is what the harvest costs you now, because that is the number the price of the tool has to be compared with.

Below you will find how to do that sum on your own grove, what changes in the field with a battery-powered harvester, and the two cases where we are the ones telling you to forget it.

The sum that matters: how many days it takes you today

There is no yield that holds for everyone: it depends on the cultivar, on the year's crop load, on the age of the trees and on how clean the ground underneath is. That is why the only number that counts is yours, and it comes from three figures you already know:

• how many trees you harvest in a season;
• how many days it took you last year, counting everyone who was in the field;
• what a day costs you: the daily wage if you have workers, or the value of your own day if you do it yourself.

Multiply the days by the daily cost and you have the cost of the harvest. Once you have that figure, the price of the tool stops being an expense and becomes a ratio: how many seasons it takes to pay for itself. Someone with a family grove who harvests over two weekends a year gets one answer; someone who harvests for third parties gets another, and usually finds it before the end of the first season.

The second cost, the one nobody counts, is the time you cannot buy: the harvest window lasts a few weeks, and olives left on the tree past the right moment are worth less at the mill. Stretching the season is not free, even when the labour is not paid for.

What changes in the field

A battery-powered harvester works with carbon rods that comb the branch and drop the olives onto the net. Our EVO 42 does 1,400 beats per minute, weighs 2.8 kg and carries a telescopic pole from 240 to 350 cm: you reach the canopy from the ground, without a ladder, and that is the point that changes the day more than speed does.

Three practical consequences, in the order customers describe them:

• you finish the tree sooner, and above all you finish the high parts that by hand get left behind;
• you come down off the ladder: less risk and less time lost moving it;
• you can still work on the second day, because your arms hold up. Hand-picking does not stop for speed, it stops for tiredness.

One warning the catalogues do not give: the harvester does not replace the nets or the work of laying them out. If the ground slopes or is full of tall grass, the bottleneck stays there, and the tool earns you less than it promises.

With the cable or with the backpack

The real difference between the two models is not the motor, which is the same: it is how the power gets there.

The EVO 42 runs off a 15-metre cable, which can be extended, connected to the car battery through an inverter. Runtime of 8-10 hours, and one 100 Ah battery powers two harvesters at once. It is the right solution if the car or the tractor can stay close to the trees: it costs less and you carry nothing on your back.

The EVO 42 ULTRA has the same motor but a 42V battery backpack: no cable, 16 hours of runtime, about 5 kg on your shoulders. You need it when the trees are far apart, when the ground cannot be driven across, or when you harvest for third parties and the cable becomes a nuisance.

There is also a third route, which few people know about: the backpack battery can be bought on its own and fitted to an EVO 42 already in use. Anyone who started with the cable and finds it limiting does not have to buy the tool again.

When we tell you no

Two cases, and we say them before the sale because it is easier to say them now than in December.

Few trees. Under twenty or so olive trees, with a harvest that is done in a weekend, a battery harvester sits idle eleven months a year. If the problem is reaching high up without a ladder, the right spend is a pole tool, not a harvester.

Table olives. The comb shakes, and an olive falling from three metres bruises. For table olives hand-picking remains the correct choice, and it is not a question of tools but of the price of the finished product.

What wears out, and what it costs

The part that breaks is always the same: the carbon rods. They snap when you force the comb into a thick branch, and it is normal for a few to be missing by the end of the season. They are a spare part, they cost little and you change them in the field with a screwdriver.

The rest, motor and mechanics, lasts if you do two things: clean the head at the end of the day and do not pull the tool when the comb is caught. The warranty is 24 months on all components, and we pay the return shipping.

In short

• The right comparison is not with the price of the tool, but with the cost of the days you spend today.
• The biggest gain is the high canopy reached from the ground, not speed on a single branch.
• Cable if the car can get close to the trees, backpack if the ground is wide or you work for third parties.
• The backpack can be added later: starting with the cable does not corner you.
• Few trees or table olives: better not to buy one.

If you want an opinion on your own case, write to assistenza@gardenmac.com and tell us how many trees you have and what the ground is like: in two minutes we can tell you whether you need one or not.

Cover photo: Anna.Massini, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.