[Picking] Harvesting a banana crop

Harvesting a banana crop is the perfect job if you like working outdoors, enjoy physical work and don’t mind getting very wet, very often, during the wet season from November to March. During the dry season from April to October the weather for pickers is much better.

 Picking crews of around 4-6 strong fit people, take a tractor, with a special trailer, between the rows of bananas looking for mature bunches. The trailer is specially designed to give the newly harvested bunches of bananas as much protection as possible from bruising and consequent markings. Padding is used to prevent this type of damage happening.

 Different coloured bunch covers are used to assist the pickers. At any time they will be predominantly looking for bags with the same coloured stripes. Firstly it’s a quick check under the bag to ensure the bunch is at the correct level of maturity.

 Secondly, two members of a team will work together to pick the bunch from the banana plant One will pull the bunch towards their shoulder, to hold it and the other will put a nick in the stem of the plant. This allows the plant to be bent over, so the bunch can rest fully on the picker’s shoulder. Then a swift slash with a machete removes the bunch from the plant and it is loaded on the trailer between the padded sheets to protect the fruit.

 Much care and attention is shown during the harvesting process. It’s velvet glove treatment all the way from here. Taking care during banana picking is a constant challenge, considering these bunches generally weigh around 35 to 50 kilograms. Note that much heavier bunches have been recorded, with the world record in excess of 100 kilograms.

 As each plant stem only produces one bunch, once that bunch is harvested, the stem of the parent plant is chopped down and becomes organic matter for the next crop. The follower (sucker), which is already partially grown becomes the new parent plant, which will produce the next bunch in 8-12 months time. Meanwhile the harvested bunches are on their way to the packing shed where there are many more hands to help get these bananas into your fruit bowl.