I need some way to insure that each blueberry bush gets picked by a customer without hiring a person to oversee the picking. I have the rows marked 1, 2, 3 … and I send customers down the proper row, but I really need to send them to the proper bush.
Can anyone suggest a method to label each bush in a way that the customers can see the numbers? I need to label about 500 bushes and I"m willing to spend a reasonable amount of money to do so.
Any Ideas?
How many different varieties are per row? three? Kind of a jumbled mix per row?
Dax
This is pretty basic but you could simply use multiple colors of flagging tape to denote each variety if that’s the whole purpose.
It doesn’t need to be pretty. You could put multiple pieces of flagging tape on each bush so it’s obvious to the customer.
I buy flagging tape from Amazon as add on’s to orders for 1.80 each.
Doing it this way you won’t be pounding in stakes which later you’ll have to mow/string trim around.
You may have something completely else necessary but I didn’t have enough information to address.
Dax
Thanks for the suggestion. I really need to be able to send a customer to a specific bush on a specific row. About 50 bushes per row and 10 rows.
I plan to give each customer a half sheet of paper with the Farm rules and write number for the bushes to be picked on that piece of paper for them to take along with the bucket I give them. I will need to assign more or less bushes per person depending on how many buckets they wish to pick and how plentiful the fruit is.
For example: : Go to the right side of Row 5 and pick bushes 3 and 4. I have signs on each row but I’m not sure how to get the person to the correct bush. With 2 sides to the row and 10 rows times 50 bushes each, it would require 1000 numbers. I could cut the number to just 200 if I only labeled each 5th bush. Something like 5, 10,15,20, 25 but it would require the customer to be able to count and react in a logical manor. I need something idiot proof!
I could cut 1000 pieces of flagging tape and number them with a sharpie and tie them to each side of the bush but I don’t believe the numbers would big enough to be seen easily.
Lol, I’m not sure how counting between 20 and 25 isn’t idiot proof. More likely the idiot sees bush 24 just doesn’t look quite as good as bush 25, so they pick 25 instead. Or there are more berries on 22 than 24, so it is much easier and faster work to pick 22.
Maybe a less granular approach is better. “Please pick in Row 2, Bush 20 thru 25.” That way at least there is some choice involved.
Less granular would save a lot of work!
We have found that many people do not follow even simple directions well. Last week I had a couple of people who slipped under a fence with a sign marked “KEEP OUT”. I replaced that sign with another one that said DANGER PESTICIDES in english and spanish which keeps people out a lot better.
A long time ago after we received some TV publicity we expected a huge crowd so we placed a numbered flag at the base of each bush on the ripe row labeled 1-100 and and marked the buckets 1-100. This allowed us to get all the ripe fruit picked in a very organized manor, but folks did not like it.
P
My 2 cents having been both an operator and a consumer, your consumers are not going to like it when you tell them you have to pick this bush and this bush only. I can see if they say I prefer “X variety” and you say then you will want to pick this bush “row X, bush Y”.
Flagging tape would be my suggestion as well. Otherwise you can get what we call irrigation flags here. They are 4" x 4" plain vinyl flags on a wire stake. You can write on them with a permanent marker. They are relatively inexpensive.
Livestock marking pens/livestock markers are very weather resistant.
Dax