Oregon Public Broadcasting

The legend of John Henry pits a "steel driving man" against a steam drill. John Henry wins the contest but in the long run, machines have prevailed in the American economy. Now, researchers at Washington State University are developing a modern day contraption that could put cherry pickers out of work.

The "cherry thumper" is the size of a sedan. It thumps tree limbs to drop the fruit onto a conveyor belt. Correspondent Anna King went to check it out at WSU's cherry test farm in Prosser.

During the cherry harvest nowadays, it's not unusual to hear the pickers sing.

But one day, the sound of cherry picking could be different.

Anna King / Northwest News Network

Qin Zhang, a member of the mechanical cherry harvest team, drives the cherry thumper at a test orchard outside of Prosser, Wash.

This machine is nicknamed the cherry thumper. It looks like an oversized video game. With a seat, two joysticks and a robot arm.

I get Matt Whiting a scientist with WSU, to fire up his invention.

Matt Whiting: "It's comprised of a thumper, knocks the branches back, fruit fall onto a catching conveyor, they are brought up to the top of the machine, another conveyor brings them to the rear, leaf litter is removed in the field and there is a standard cherry bin collecting the fruit at the back of the machine."

Early summer is Whiting's go time. He has just about two to three weeks during the peak of cherry season to do all his field research for the year. If Whiting can get this thing working properly, farmers could replace hundreds of cherry pickers with one thumper.

Whiting says labor is one of the most expensive costs for cherry farmers.

Matt Whiting: "The holy grail would be to have a fully mechanized harvest.We've studied that the last few years and we found that the picking costs per pound have gone from by hand from 20 to 24 to maybe 25 cents a pound to two to three cents per pound using this prototype harvester."

Whiting says that price includes the purchase of the machine. The U.S. Department of Agriculture thinks it's such a good idea that it gave Whiting $4 million to develop the project.

Now he has a team of 11 working on everything from nuts and bolts to consumer packaging.

It's not the only contraption Whiting and his team are developing. They're also working on a cherry shaker that looks like a weed-eater. It could be used in older farms where the trees aren't suited for the thumper.

These two machines have big implications for the rural economy in the northwest and the cherries you buy in the store.

Last year during the peak of cherry harvest there were more than 40-thousand cherry pickers working in Washington alone. Mechanization means there would be far fewer of them.

It also means farmers and consumers would have to get used to cherries without stems. The machines knock the cherries down and the stems stay on the tree. Stem-less cherries are already hitting a test market this summer in Missouri.

If all goes well on the test farm -- you might be see the stem-less orbs in your stores in about four more summers.