Snap vs Clip
We were out harvesting GEM avocados the other day and what a set of gymnastics it can require to get at the fruit stem or peduncle to make a nice cut. The peduncle on the GEM can be quite long – up to 12 inches - and it gets wrapped around its sister fruit stems and also around branches and stuck in crotches. It’s often easier to clip higher up on the stems to get the fruit and then reclip it properly. What a lot of work. A lot of times the fruit and stem are hiding in a little crotch which makes for a lot of angling to get at the stem. Maybe if you know what you are doing, it’s easier, but clipping is still a slowing process.
Twisted stems
Hiding fruit
Why not just snap it? It’s faster and you can use two hands. The reasoning has been that snapping can affect ripening and water loss and increases fruit decay. The first issue was addressed by Irv Eaks as long ago as 1972, and there are modest effects (https://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/AvoResearch/avoresearch_02_02_2002_Hofshi_Snap.pdf). The second issue of fruit decay was approached by Joseph Smilanick and company in the 2002 Avocado Symposium (“Management of Postharvest Decay of Avocado Fruit” l https://www.avocadosource.com/arac/symposium_2002/f2.pdf) found no increased fruit disease incidence when harvesting was done in a dry period, that is spring through summer. This inspired the 2002 AvoResearch article by Reuben Hofshi (https://www.avocadosource.com/Journals/AvoResearch/avoresearch_02_02_2002_Hofshi_Snap.pdf) asking why we don’t abandon clipping in favor of the much faster two hand snapping that could be happening with Hass and I think certainly in the case of GEM. I’m for it.
Most of the GEM fruit don't hide. Most of it hangs so that it's pretty easy to clip, but there's enough tangled fruit to slow a picker down if they are trying to clip. During that time of trying to get at the stem to clip, one dreams of just snapping the fruit.
Of course saving a button is up to the packing house and the consumer.
