Efficient harvesting of fresh fruit bunches (FFB) is vital to ensure the FFB are harvested within the recommended harvesting round of 10 to 12 days interval. Manual harvesting (using a sickle or chisel) can only produce about an average of 1 t FFB man-1 day-1 (Azman et al., 2015). Estates are now looking for more efficient harvesting tools that could increase productivity and ultimately reduce the number of workers. The harvesting productivity needs to be increased to about 4 t FFB man-1 day-1 if the country wishes to reduce labour requirement significantly (Abdul Razak et al., 2013).

Main Researcher: Mohd Ikmal Hafizi Azaman