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I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I

by dxbydt 6y ago

I grew up in a remote village in south India. We had over two dozen coconut trees in our yard. I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. This sort of manual work was standard fare for a young teen. Even then, in the 1970s, there was a shortage of coconut harvesters. The ones who showed up to harvest coconuts were quite poor, thin with ribs showing, and were well known through the village for this skill. It was quite a dangerous task - due to rains some of the trunks could be quite slippery. There were snakes in many of these trees! As a kid I wanted to learn, so they tied a rope around my waist to get me to clamber up the coconut tree. I wasn't able to - you get calluses on your palms & feet & it cuts through the skin as well. If you stick a tall ladder next to the tree, and climb to the topmost rung, you can tie an iron sickle to a rod & using the sickle, chop off the coconuts - but you have to stay clear of the falling coconuts! So a robot harvester of this sort is quite welcome. Its a pretty ingenious device.

weeksie 6y ago
One time as a tourist I stayed at a guest house in the Kerala backwaters. My host had several coconut trees and gave me a shot at climbing one. There was this contraption I harnessed to myself with a strap around the tree and I made it up a fair bit before realizing that there was no way in hell I was going to go any further, let alone perform any meaningful act of dexterity at the top of the tree. Everybody had a good laugh.
- grugagag 6y ago
  Very interesting way to climb. When I was a kid I used to climb various trees but nothing straight and branchless like a coconut tree. Just looked up this on youtube[0]. The safety harness makes sense and the the loop for the feet does as well. As it goes, in India the coconut climber job is dwindling fast so this robot climber is very good replacement at the moment. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrjuL5WL9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrjuL5WL9w
thaumasiotes 6y ago
> Even then, in the 1970s, there was a shortage of coconut harvesters. What's the problem with letting the coconuts fall off naturally? Danger?
- captn3m0 6y ago
  Ripeness I presume. Different coconut products require different age of the coconut.
- prasadjoglekar 6y ago
  Coconuts fall off when they dry. If you want coconut water and the rather tasty wet flesh, you need to go up there and bring them down.
  - dlhavema 6y ago
    I had a fresh coconut once on vacation it was amazing. nothing like any of the other coconut I've ever had before.
- dxbydt 6y ago
  Mature coconuts fall off naturally, but they taste yucky. All the water dries up & becomes milky. If you don't harvest young coconuts during the prescribed interval, the water becomes undrinkable. But we use mature coconuts for oil. You crush it & set it out to dry in the hot sun, make coconut flakes etc. Also, its dangerous to let coconuts stay up like that. In every village there's always 1-2 stories of kid who died when playing in the orchard because dried coconut dropped on him.
- someonenice 6y ago
  The coconut is harvested at different stages and used for different purpose - Tender coconut - Havested at very early stage and mainly used for the water. They have cream inside that is yet not solid and more water. Good for drinking only. - Slighly ripe. These are the coconut used for cooking. They have solid inside and less water. Grated coconut and coconut milk are made from this. Virgin coconut oil is also made from these. - Old ones - Mostly the coconut that falls naturally. Outside is fully brown in color. They have no water inside. And the solid cake is dried and pressed to extract oil.
jelliclesfarm 6y ago
I visited South Indian villages during summer vacations and my grandfather had 5 coconut trees in his urban garden. Someone will come by to climb and harvest the coconut when it’s time to get them down. One of my fav memories is him tossing green coconuts into the water well during summer. It will keep cool even when it’s crazy hot temperatures and we will just fish one out when the kids get thirsty. Tender green coconuts will float because of the fibrous outer covering. Climbing the trees was dangerous and seemed scary. Coconut trees have no branches and it’s literally climbing all very rough tall pole barefoot. Amazing. I can understand why there’d be a shortage. The coconut climber was always in demand!
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Thanks a lot for sharing these details. I think they add a lot of context to this particular activity.
daggerdrone 6y ago
Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?
- TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
  If you turn up thin with ribs showing I'd hazard a guess that puts you at a significant disadvantage in any negotiations.
- brainless 6y ago
  Most Indians, me including and people I know of, do not understand the concepts of pricing that Western countries talk about. Even now, in 2020, this comes up frequently in product pricing when I talk to founders in India who haven't seen the Western notion of pricing first hand.
  - recuter 6y ago
    Please elaborate (If you can, I suppose - this is kind of blowing my mind).
    - brainless 6y ago
      I am not surprised it blows your mind. Pricing in the Western systems is all about finding out how high you can price so fewer people pay a lot more which offsets running a larger scale business to serve more customers at lower price points. So these systems have accepted that not everything is for everybody, and do not even make an effort to get things to people. US healthcare is a good example here. Countries with much large populations can not run that way, not everything at least. We are still learning to balance, which is why I want to adopt a region-based pricing for anything I build. Since customers from Western nations get a kick by paying more, I say, let them. Get and money and subsidize for the rest.
      - recuter 6y ago
        The US is not "The West". Price/market segmentation, which is what you're describing (by region) is not exclusive to India or "The East". "Finding out how high you can price" things is more of a strategy for veblen goods, it is certainly not how everything is priced nor exclusive to any geographic region... I don't think I'm following this at all. :)
vosper 6y ago
> I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. IIUC this was your role un maintaining the trees, and wasn't related to harvesting the coconuts? So it was for irrigation, I guess?
andi999 6y ago
I heard in Thailand they trained monkeys to do the job. Is this also a possibility for India?
- alienonwings 6y ago
  Given the fact that the training that goes behind this is a brutal busniess and the fact that monkey is a God figure, it would not be received well in India, I believe.
  - andi999 6y ago
    I do not think brutal training is necessary, but I might be wrong. Also I thought in India there a cows ploughing the fields, and they are also holy?
    - vats 6y ago
      I think the bulls plough the fields (which are not that holy).
    - fakedang 6y ago
      It's India - if it exists, it's holy. Holy cow, holy monkey, holy (cow) shit, holy elephants, holy snakes, holy rats, holy rock formations, holy wells, whatever. Incidentally my aunt's home is located right next to a snake shrine of old (yes, they give offerings to snakes, mostly cobras, there), even though the area is predominantly resided by Muslims. On the other hand, there is a Hindu temple in another district dedicated to the worship of a Robinhood-esque thief who was a Muslim - and the offerings are mostly alcohol (and previously weed).
eeretekeh 6y ago
I am from a southern district of Tamil Nadu. Here, we follow a different method to cut the coconuts. The harvesters do not climb the tree. Instead, they tie together bamboo poles to form one long pole and tie a sickle to one end. The harvester then cuts the coconut bunch from the ground. It is much more efficient and faster than climbing the trees. When I was young, I was fascinated by their craft. They are so good, that they could determine how ripen the coconuts were just by looking from the ground. Some times from very tall trees that are over 100 feet tall. And to balance a pole that large..
- eeretekeh 6y ago
  I would love to see someone come up with an ingenious solution for a similar job, but is much more dangerous, difficult and nuanced - climbing palm (palmyra) trees to get palmyra juice. The tools they use are a loop made of fiber from palmyra leaf and a leather shield. The பனையேரி (literally means palmyra climber) wears the loop over their foot and the leather shield over their chest and they pull themselves up to the top of the tree. It's a brutally punishing and exhausting task. (0) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0suSGmww9lQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0suSGmww9lQ
  - guru4consulting 6y ago
    climbing palm trees and cutting down those palm fruits (called nongu in Tamil Nadu) is much more harder.. probably 10x more harder than coconut tree. Long poles with sickle may help in harvesting coconuts, but not the palm fruits.. a robotic arm with motorized blade will be ideal for palm trees.
- neurostimulant 6y ago
  Here people train small monkeys to climb and harvest the coconut fruits. The monkeys can only fell down old dried coconut fruits as the young fruit has tough stem, which requires knife to cut (obviously you wouldn't want to train a monkey to use a knife). The practice is now banned in many regions, so it's about time for robots to take over.
- zabil 6y ago

by dxbydt 6y ago

weeksie 6y ago

One time as a tourist I stayed at a guest house in the Kerala backwaters. My host had several coconut trees and gave me a shot at climbing one. There was this contraption I harnessed to myself with a strap around the tree and I made it up a fair bit before realizing that there was no way in hell I was going to go any further, let alone perform any meaningful act of dexterity at the top of the tree. Everybody had a good laugh.

grugagag 6y ago
Very interesting way to climb. When I was a kid I used to climb various trees but nothing straight and branchless like a coconut tree. Just looked up this on youtube[0]. The safety harness makes sense and the the loop for the feet does as well. As it goes, in India the coconut climber job is dwindling fast so this robot climber is very good replacement at the moment. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrjuL5WL9w https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTrjuL5WL9w

thaumasiotes 6y ago

> Even then, in the 1970s, there was a shortage of coconut harvesters. What's the problem with letting the coconuts fall off naturally? Danger?

captn3m0 6y ago
Ripeness I presume. Different coconut products require different age of the coconut.
prasadjoglekar 6y ago
Coconuts fall off when they dry. If you want coconut water and the rather tasty wet flesh, you need to go up there and bring them down.
- dlhavema 6y ago
  I had a fresh coconut once on vacation it was amazing. nothing like any of the other coconut I've ever had before.
dxbydt 6y ago
Mature coconuts fall off naturally, but they taste yucky. All the water dries up & becomes milky. If you don't harvest young coconuts during the prescribed interval, the water becomes undrinkable. But we use mature coconuts for oil. You crush it & set it out to dry in the hot sun, make coconut flakes etc. Also, its dangerous to let coconuts stay up like that. In every village there's always 1-2 stories of kid who died when playing in the orchard because dried coconut dropped on him.
someonenice 6y ago
The coconut is harvested at different stages and used for different purpose - Tender coconut - Havested at very early stage and mainly used for the water. They have cream inside that is yet not solid and more water. Good for drinking only. - Slighly ripe. These are the coconut used for cooking. They have solid inside and less water. Grated coconut and coconut milk are made from this. Virgin coconut oil is also made from these. - Old ones - Mostly the coconut that falls naturally. Outside is fully brown in color. They have no water inside. And the solid cake is dried and pressed to extract oil.

jelliclesfarm 6y ago

I visited South Indian villages during summer vacations and my grandfather had 5 coconut trees in his urban garden. Someone will come by to climb and harvest the coconut when it’s time to get them down. One of my fav memories is him tossing green coconuts into the water well during summer. It will keep cool even when it’s crazy hot temperatures and we will just fish one out when the kids get thirsty. Tender green coconuts will float because of the fibrous outer covering. Climbing the trees was dangerous and seemed scary. Coconut trees have no branches and it’s literally climbing all very rough tall pole barefoot. Amazing. I can understand why there’d be a shortage. The coconut climber was always in demand!

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

Thanks a lot for sharing these details. I think they add a lot of context to this particular activity.

daggerdrone 6y ago

Just out of curiosity, if there was shortage of coconut harvesters, why were they poor? Can't they demand more money for the task?

TheSpiceIsLife 6y ago
If you turn up thin with ribs showing I'd hazard a guess that puts you at a significant disadvantage in any negotiations.
brainless 6y ago
Most Indians, me including and people I know of, do not understand the concepts of pricing that Western countries talk about. Even now, in 2020, this comes up frequently in product pricing when I talk to founders in India who haven't seen the Western notion of pricing first hand.
- recuter 6y ago
  Please elaborate (If you can, I suppose - this is kind of blowing my mind).
  - brainless 6y ago
    I am not surprised it blows your mind. Pricing in the Western systems is all about finding out how high you can price so fewer people pay a lot more which offsets running a larger scale business to serve more customers at lower price points. So these systems have accepted that not everything is for everybody, and do not even make an effort to get things to people. US healthcare is a good example here. Countries with much large populations can not run that way, not everything at least. We are still learning to balance, which is why I want to adopt a region-based pricing for anything I build. Since customers from Western nations get a kick by paying more, I say, let them. Get and money and subsidize for the rest.
    - recuter 6y ago
      The US is not "The West". Price/market segmentation, which is what you're describing (by region) is not exclusive to India or "The East". "Finding out how high you can price" things is more of a strategy for veblen goods, it is certainly not how everything is priced nor exclusive to any geographic region... I don't think I'm following this at all. :)

vosper 6y ago

> I made a long loop in the mud that went around all these trees. I'd pull water out of the well using a rope & pulley & pour it down the loop. The water would wind its way until it reached all the two dozen trees. About an hour of this water pulling & the loop would stay wet for a few hours. IIUC this was your role un maintaining the trees, and wasn't related to harvesting the coconuts? So it was for irrigation, I guess?

andi999 6y ago

I heard in Thailand they trained monkeys to do the job. Is this also a possibility for India?

alienonwings 6y ago
Given the fact that the training that goes behind this is a brutal busniess and the fact that monkey is a God figure, it would not be received well in India, I believe.
- andi999 6y ago
  I do not think brutal training is necessary, but I might be wrong. Also I thought in India there a cows ploughing the fields, and they are also holy?
  - vats 6y ago
    I think the bulls plough the fields (which are not that holy).
  - fakedang 6y ago
    It's India - if it exists, it's holy. Holy cow, holy monkey, holy (cow) shit, holy elephants, holy snakes, holy rats, holy rock formations, holy wells, whatever. Incidentally my aunt's home is located right next to a snake shrine of old (yes, they give offerings to snakes, mostly cobras, there), even though the area is predominantly resided by Muslims. On the other hand, there is a Hindu temple in another district dedicated to the worship of a Robinhood-esque thief who was a Muslim - and the offerings are mostly alcohol (and previously weed).

eeretekeh 6y ago

I am from a southern district of Tamil Nadu. Here, we follow a different method to cut the coconuts. The harvesters do not climb the tree. Instead, they tie together bamboo poles to form one long pole and tie a sickle to one end. The harvester then cuts the coconut bunch from the ground. It is much more efficient and faster than climbing the trees. When I was young, I was fascinated by their craft. They are so good, that they could determine how ripen the coconuts were just by looking from the ground. Some times from very tall trees that are over 100 feet tall. And to balance a pole that large..

eeretekeh 6y ago
I would love to see someone come up with an ingenious solution for a similar job, but is much more dangerous, difficult and nuanced - climbing palm (palmyra) trees to get palmyra juice. The tools they use are a loop made of fiber from palmyra leaf and a leather shield. The பனையேரி (literally means palmyra climber) wears the loop over their foot and the leather shield over their chest and they pull themselves up to the top of the tree. It's a brutally punishing and exhausting task. (0) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0suSGmww9lQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0suSGmww9lQ
- guru4consulting 6y ago
  climbing palm trees and cutting down those palm fruits (called nongu in Tamil Nadu) is much more harder.. probably 10x more harder than coconut tree. Long poles with sickle may help in harvesting coconuts, but not the palm fruits.. a robotic arm with motorized blade will be ideal for palm trees.
neurostimulant 6y ago
Here people train small monkeys to climb and harvest the coconut fruits. The monkeys can only fell down old dried coconut fruits as the young fruit has tough stem, which requires knife to cut (obviously you wouldn't want to train a monkey to use a knife). The practice is now banned in many regions, so it's about time for robots to take over.
zabil 6y ago