Haith showcases wash and grade innovations

Vegetable handling experts Haith showcased two washing and grading innovations at last month's Potato Expo in the USA.

The Haith Group has been designing and supplying innovative solutions for farmers, packers and food manufacturers for over 75 years. It exhibited its mobile water treatment system and PRO-Sort mobile optical grader at Potato Expo on 4-5 January at Aurora, Colorado.

The mobile water treatment system can be used on-farm or production factories. Haith has installed numerous systems in the UK and Europe – but complicated planning processes and transportation costs have often deterred American companies.

Haith's new modular system overcomes all of the issues facing potential overseas customers. The plant splits into multiple units for easy transportation by low loaders without special permits, and it can be assembled in less than two days using forklifts or a crane.

Organic matter

Once connected to a wash system, the dirty water flows into the Haith Mobile Water Treatment System, with a screen separating larger organic matter from the water. The effluent is then pumped to a lamella settler which separates the soil from the water.

Sludge drops to the bottom of the tank, from where it is pumped to a dewatering filterpress on the opposite side of the unit. The resulting soil cake can then be conveyed into a skip or soil trailer. Treated water is fed into a storage tank for returning to the process or discharge to sewer.

The company's joint project with Grimme UK – the PRO-Sort, was the second innovation to feature on Haith's booth.

Optical sorter

The mobile optical sorter automates the removal of stone, clod and foreign debris from potatoes and helps growers cope with labour shortages. At the heart of the machine is a Tomra 3A optical sorter which is capable of handling up to 100 tonnes per hour with high levels of accuracy.

The Tomra 3A employs Near Infra-Red multi-spectral sensors for an unobstructed assessment of every object 'in flight', seamlessly identifying between potatoes and foreign material. As well as debris, the 3A's colour sensors can also detect green potatoes.

This means poor potatoes and the debris can be removed at the end of the conveyor belt by intelligent finger ejectors.As the PROSort is a modular unit, it can be used in the field or on a farm and easily integrated into a new or existing grading line.

In addition to the mobile systems, Haith will update people on developments made to its ProLine modular food handling solution. The Pro-Line combines all of Haith's class-leading machines in an incredibly effective way. ProLine installations in the UK have delivered the same throughput levels as lines featuring twice as many older machines.

Established in 1947 In the UK, Haith offers a range of vegetable handling solutions to fresh produce suppliers. Over the last decade, the company has replicated this success across the Atlantic, developing and installing efficient solutions for potato growers in North America.

Pumpkins and alpacas seem an unlikely recipe for a successful diversification on a dairy farm. But for Staffordshire farmer Roger Cooke and his girlfriend Ruby the two combined to create a very busy and fruitful Halloween venture.

After considering the idea of growing pumpkins for a couple of years, Mr Cooke took the plunge last spring, spraying off a 0.8ha patch of pasture by his farmhouse at Tunstall Farm Park, Woodseaves into which to plant five different varieties of pumpkin.

“I was told I needed a really fine seedbed for pumpkins,” Mr Cooke says. “But I used my knowledge of seed-to-soil contact, and with the larger seed thought we’d phorus in the soil to make the nutrients available to the plant. It also contains mycorrhizae fungi to help transport nutrients from further afield and dried seaweed to feed and help retain moisture next to the seed where it is needed most.

“There was lower germination and survival rates where we hadn’t used Mycroboost. The plants visually looked weaker and didn’t crop as well when it comes to fruit production.” In contrast Mycroboost promoted better root growth that helped the plants withstand the summer drought better, he says.

Once the plants reached the size of a football, Mr Cooke applied a dose of Edwards Advanced seaweed, which provides a huge amount of trace elements and plant hormones and meant, other