Sorting cut hydrangea with the IRISS Hydrangea sorting machine

Growing cut hydrangeas comes with its share of challenges. One of those challenges lies in sorting the harvest.

Sorting cut hydrangeas is based on various characteristics, such as color, head diameter, and stem length. Until 2021, this sorting process in the Netherlands was done entirely by hand. Manual sorting has several drawbacks. First, staff need to be trained. The less experienced the staff, the slower and less accurate the sorting. In addition, the quality of sorting is not consistent throughout the day. By the end of the day, people become tired, lose focus, and errors can occur.

Training staff is another issue that takes up a lot of time in hydrangea cultivation. Because hydrangeas are not grown year-round, seasonal workers are often used. This means new staff may need to be trained every year to handle sorting—an unnecessary time investment that also requires a lot of attention from the grower to maintain sorting quality.

As a result, the grower often spends a lot of time coordinating the sorting process. Since a person can only be in one place at a time, this often leads to working late into the evening on other business-related tasks such as administration, which cannot be completed during the day.

Finally, cutting hydrangea stems to size is a physically demanding task that often leads to shoulder injuries, especially when stems are cut in bunches using a guillotine.

With the arrival of the IRISS Hydrangea sorting machine, these frustrations are a thing of the past. Automating the sorting of cut hydrangeas is labour saving and creates uniformity.

The IRISS Hydrangea sorting machine brings structure to the sorting process and calm to the workflow. Sorting is no longer guesswork—it becomes certainty. The machine is modular in design, allowing it to be configured to each grower’s ideal setup. The machine consists of:

• The main unit with cameras, cutting blade, and conveyor belt

• Infeed conveyor (optional)

• Sorting outlets with tilting conveyors

• Drop mats or buffer conveyors for collecting and/or transporting the sorted flowers

  
  

Thanks to its modular construction, the system can easily be expanded later. The software is already prepared for this.

How the IRISS Hydrangea sorting machine works

When used with an infeed conveyor, the IRISS Hydrangea sorting machine can process up to approximately 1,200 flowers per hour. Flowers are fed into the machine either by placing them on the infeed conveyor (which allows buffering) or by feeding them one by one via the conveyor belt.

The flowers are then guided into the machine via an angled V-belt. At the end of the V-belt, the flower head drops freely, allowing the camera to capture the entire surface area. A photo is taken, and the software determines the head diameter. For irregularly shaped heads, sorting can optionally be based on surface area.

After the photo is taken, the flower continues through the machine, where sensors determine the stem length and a blade cuts it to size. The flower is then directed to the assigned sorting outlet, where it is discharged onto a drop mat or buffer conveyor.

In addition to head diameter, sorting can also be based on color. Some crops produce flowers in multiple colors simultaneously. Sorting by color allows for more uniform bunches.

After sorting, the flowers can be manually bundled. This provides a final quality check before the flowers are placed in water, ready for auction.

Determining the sortings

Setting up sorting programs and sortings can easily be done by the grower. Sorting thresholds such as diameter and stem length can be adjusted as needed. The system works simply: sortings are arranged from top to bottom. IRISS checks each flower against the sorting rules from top to bottom.

This means the sortings should be arranged by value: the most valuable sorting at the top, and a residual sorting at the bottom. This ensures that every flower achieves the best possible price.

Once the sortings are set, little adjustment is needed. Depending on growth conditions, sortings can be activated or deactivated—for example, if the crop becomes longer. This can be easily modified. Switching between sorting programs, for instance when multiple cultivars are harvested in one day, is also just a matter of a few mouse clicks.

Because of the machine’s ease of use and consistent, uniform sorting, constant supervision is no longer required. This allows the grower to focus on other tasks, such as administration or overseeing the harvest. Since the machine takes over sorting, staff require minimal training, saving time and reducing errors.

Uniformity and quality 24/7 — quality inspected by IRISS!

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