Trommel

Pine Island Cranberry has only been using our bogside cleaner for one season but our team is already figuring out ways to make it even better!

Our Equipment team spent a considerable amount of time over the past month or so working on a trommel attachment in order to increase the efficiency of the bogside cleaner. (A trommel, also known as a “trommel screen,” is a screened cylinder used to separate materials by size.)

The team took it on a trial run last week and were pleased with the results! “It did exactly what it was supposed to do,” says welder Fred Henschel. What this new extension is actually supposed to do is take in all the trash produced by the berry pump: berries that are too small, leaves, twigs…anything not supposed to go with the fruit, along with all the water it’s pulling up from the bog. “The problem before was, we were pulling in so much water it wasn’t separating from the trash enough,” Fred says. “We couldn’t entirely disperse the water and the trash truck would end up pulling away more than half full of water as opposed to full of just the debris.”

The team’s modifications made it possible to send clean water back into the bog and the debris into the trucks. It was also more efficient from a time and fuel standpoint, since instead of using three to four trash trucks per trailer load of berries, the gathering crew was able to load one tractor trailer with one trash truck. “It saved time on switching, as well,” Fred says. When it was time to switch out the trash truck, the team would have to stop the pump, pull the truck all the way out to the far corner of the bog, then back another truck all the way back in. Skipping that step allows the harvest to move much faster.

And in the true spirit of doing whatever it takes…”The guys were so excited to try it out that it couldn’t fail,” Fred says.

*Photos by Fred Henschel