Orange harvesting scheduling management: a case study

The competitiveness of Brazil's citrus sector is a function of quality control in the transformation of fruit into juice. The transformation process commences with the harvest, the timing of which significantly affects fruit quality. In this paper, a mathematical model is formulated that links pertinent chemical, biologic, and logistic restrictions to the quality of the fruit to be harvested, applying linear programming theory. The modelling structure was verified and validated with real data from 320 Brazilian farms involved with an annual production of approximately 7 200 000 boxes of oranges. It could be attested that the maximization of the number of boxes of oranges to be harvested (strategy that is still adopted by a representative number of Brazilian citrus farmers, based on the industry advice) does not necessarily correspond to the maximum quantity of total soluble solids (TSS). In many cases, citrus harvested at the optimum TSS point offered higher concentrated juice productivity. The estimated potential benefits ($) from using the proposed model reached figures over 6%.