Ladders can be difficult to maneuver close enough to the tree, get the front
feet through the branches, etc. In commercial orchards all the trees are
pruned with accessibility for harvest in mind; not always true at home.
Orchard ladders are far easier and safer than stepladders, but they are
expensive.

That twister picker looks great, but I have never tried it.

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"Omelet" wrote in message
news
In article ,
LurfysMa wrote:

I have an orange tree that produces decent oranges. Every year, I have
a battle getting the oranges from any but the lowest branches.

Two years ago, I bought one of those pickers with the wire basket,
like this one:

http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Picker-W...LDI/sr=1-5/qid
=1169494769/ref=sr_1_5/105-9100559-5530826?ie=UTF8&s=hi

It works more or less, but there are problems. The claws can be
difficult to use, especially if the fruit is close to a branch or
another orange. On my tree, the oranges tend to cluster. It doesn't
really grab the fruit so I have to pull down pretty hard in order to
be able to apply any twisting motion at all. Sometimes I end up
tearing off part of the branch. This shakes the tree and causes other
oranges to fall and get bruised.

I just did another search and the only thing I came up with is this
one:

http://www.amazon.com/Fruit-Picker-t...1-1/qid=116949
4769/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1_s9_rk/105-9100559-5530826?ie=UTF8&s=hi&s9r=8a1080b60d117c
11010d28da17020204

It looks like it might work better.

Has anyone used it? Care to share experiences? It gets good reiews on
Amazon.

Does anyone have a better idea or pointer?

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Weird question here...

What's wrong with using a ladder???

:-o
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