Like many industries in agriculture, the apple industry is increasingly embracing automation. For Scotian Gold Cooperative in Coldbrook, Nova Scotia for example, it's into its second season with its presort system, an eight-lane high-speed system that sorts apples through 39 flumes–water is used throughout the presort to minimize bruising. Each flume fills up to 330 kg allowing the apples to float away protected into their sorted bin.
"It allows us to take orchard-run fruit from the growers which have various sizes, quality, and color, and segregates them into like bins so our salespeople know exactly what they have to sell in terms of inventory," says David Parrish of Scotian Gold Cooperative, adding that the filtration system within the sorter uses infrared light versus chlorination.
The presort also has short flumes–which has made a very compact design. "Our high-speed lines are designed to pack our fruit very efficiently. It allows us to react very quickly to our customers," adds Parrish.
2025's apple crop
This comes as the Nova Scotia apple industry is just getting into its apple bloom season–the region is the latest in North America to hit bloom. "Our 2025 season is running at least a week earlier than normal so blooms have started to come out and this week we'll probably hit full bloom," says Parrish. "Today is rainy and it's going to be rainy later this week. Hopefully, there will be a window of weather to allow for good pollination."
What is known is that Scotian Gold has a number of varieties, including the popular Honeycrisp, but also proprietary ones such as SweeTango and Rave, which continue to go up in volume in Nova Scotia.
For more information:
David Parrish
Scotian Gold Cooperative
[email protected]
https://scotiangoldapples.com/