In Germany's largest gherkin growing areas, Bavaria, Brandenburg and Northrhne-Westfalia, harvesting of gherkins is done by hand, which costs a lot of energy. Use of the so-called 'Gurkenflieger', harvesting machines pulled by tractors and moving slowly over the fields, are used here, whilst seasonal workers are lying on their belly to collect the gherkins. However, this is very tiring and expensive. A full automatic harvesting machine hardly needing any staff could offer relief. The prototype of such a machine is for the first time used in Spreewald in Brandenburg. The machine only needs a driver and two assistants, who separate the gherkins from the lumps of soil and stones. A Gurkenflieger needed 24 seasonal workers to collect the vegetables.
This is not an entirely new invention. "In a period of four years we rebuild an automatic tomato harvesting machine," Heinz-Peter Frehn, owner of an agrarian company in Golszen, says. Frehn wants the automatic harvesting machine to keep the make 'Spreewaelder Gurken' competitive in the future. But although the machine is doing well technically the use of it is by no means profitable, as the plants are being pulled out of the ground when harvesting. A Gurkenflieger, however, goes over the field up to 30 times in order to harvest the gherkins. Therefore one cannot as yet speak of a revolution on the gherkin fields. "As long as this machine only harvests one third of the gherkin volume harvested by the Gurkenflieger, it cannot be put into action on a large scale," says Frehn.
However, Frehn does see a future for the machine. "The mower-threashing machine was also not profitable immediately. We therefore need new gherkin varieties, all of which can be harvested at the same time" the grower says. Therefore he wants to continue his high-tech project.
