Photo: Commercial Apricot Picker Central Otago New Zealand

A commercial apricot picker starts his day with his helpful machine and makes his way through the orchard near Roxburgh in Central Otago, New Zealand picking all the ripe fruit.

Hundreds of apricot trees, grown in rows, fill this orchard near Roxburgh in Central Otago, New Zealand and every year a commercial picker brings out his mechanical crane for help. Without the aid of a specially designed fruit picking machine, all the apricots would not be picked in time before they become overripe and a tremendous amount of money would be lost for this commercial picker.

The fruit business in Central Otago is a major source of survival for many of the local residents and the faster each apricot is picked from the tree, the more money reaped. The basket on this machine is filled with apricots and then is easily unloaded in to the crate for shipping, making this process a hundred times faster than picking each one singly.

Commercial fruit pickers picking Apricots from a small mechanical crane designed for fruit picking in an orchard near Roxburgh, Central Otago, South Island, New Zealand.