Design and experiment optimize of the vibration harvesting machine of Lycium barbarum L.

The primary method for harvesting Lycium barbarum L. (L. barbarum) is manual labor, making it one of the most labor-intensive fruit crops in the Northwest region of China. Due to the decrease of labor supply and the increase of labor cost, the cost of harvesting has become a major hindrance to the development of the L. barbarum industry. Therefore, it is important to achieving mechanized harvesting of L. barbarum. In this study, a vibration harvesting machine was designed. Plackett-Burman experiment was conducted to assess the correlation between the picking rate of ripe fruit and various parameters. It was found that the significant factors were vibration amplitude, vibration frequency, and spacing of the vibrating rods. Based on the response surface methodology (RSM), parameter experiment was conducted to analyze the impact of these factors on picking rate of ripe fruit, picking rate of unripe fruit, and damage rate of ripe fruit. The optimal harvesting parameters were determined to be: vibration amplitude of 44 mm, spacing of the vibrating rods of 24 mm, and vibration frequency of 9Hz. The verification experiment showed that the picking rate of ripe fruit was 86.44%, the picking rate of unripe fruit was 6.81%, and the damage rate of ripe fruit was 5.54%. This study provides a design basis for realizing mechanized harvesting.