1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a device for the automatic harvesting of mushrooms.
2. Description of the Related Art
When mushrooms are harvested they are manually picked. The person that harvests the mushrooms must make his choice of the desired dimension by sight. The stem of the mushroom must then be cut off. This happens usually with a hand-held knife. The mushroom is then put down in a box or carton. This way of harvesting requires great skill and is very labor intensive. There have been trials with fully automatic harvesting machines, but these have proven to be failures. There are also machines that harvest the whole cultivating bed in one passage. This way of operation has the disadvantage that the harvest is a mixture of too large to too small. In this way the cultivating bed is not completely used.