Count banana bunches in a load from a photo

Counting banana bunches at the collection point or packhouse

On banana farms the bunch is the unit of work: cutters and carriers are paid per bunch, and the packhouse records bunches received from each block. A photo at the collection point, or of bunches hanging from a cableway before they enter the packhouse, gives both sides the same count. Photograph hanging bunches from the side, square to the line, so each bunch is a separate shape.

Many farms protect bunches with plastic bags in the field. Those bags reflect light and hide the shape of the fruit, so either take them off before the photo or mark one bagged bunch as your example. Make sure the example box covers the whole bunch, not a single hand of bananas, otherwise each hand may be counted on its own. Bunches resting on padded ground at a collection point should lie side by side rather than piled, and are best photographed from above.

Record each block, crew or cableway load as its own row and export the CSV for payroll. Coconuts from the same farm can be counted on the coconut page, and after packing, boxed fruit in a ripening room is counted by the carton with the box counter.