Mass Harvesting Question- Stupid question but I need help

[Jackson9898]

Hi, Thank you in advance to anyone that can help answer my question. I have always wondered how produce such as corn, melons even fruit trees and berry bushes are mass harvested at the same time when lots of the different fruits and vegetables on the plants ripen at slightly different times. also I'm not sure if I have posted this in the right thread, if I haven't I'm sorry.

 

[Exfarmer]

Hi, Thank you in advance to anyone that can help answer my question. I have always wondered how produce such as corn, melons even fruit trees and berry bushes are mass harvested at the same time when lots of the different fruits and vegetables on the plants ripen at slightly different times. also I'm not sure if I have posted this in the right thread, if I haven't I'm sorry.

Firstly broadacre crops like corn, whether you mean maize, wheat barley etc, have evolved over the last couple of thousand years into strains which come to harvest at the same time. Most of the crops grown today are genetically all the same within a variety
Other crops such as veg and fruit are either grown as determinate hybrids which again come to harvest together, or if they are stubbornly indeterminate, are normally picked by hand, such as tomatoes, peppers, etc. Even then there has been progress in breeding either conventionally or by GM to produce fruit, normally for onward processing, by machine.
Other crops such as olives are frequently machine harvested at a date which gives the maximum yield of ripe fruit which may or not be further sorted, depending on destination, by hand or machine sometimes using electronic eyes at the pack house.