Harvester Sanitation

Purpose

This page focuses on harvesters because they are complex, high-debris machines that can move among many fields during a season and can carry contaminated soil and plant debris in hidden areas.

Required Under the Current Compliance Agreement


Harvest machinery covered by the current exhibits must be cleaned reasonably free of soil and plant debris before movement out of the field, facility, or designated zone context described in the applicable exhibit.

UC Recommended Practices


Harvesters should be treated as high-risk equipment. A quick exterior rinse, even if this rinse includes a sanitizer, is not an adequate standard. The areas that matter most are the ones that accumulate or trap debris, especially axles, frame members, suction fan areas, fan ducts, chippers, and other hidden or packed accumulation points. In high-risk situations, more intensive access may be needed, including removal of the fan duct for more thorough cleaning.

Where practical, clean harvesters in the repeated designated cleaning area so cleaning happens in a known, controlled location. Start with scraping, compressed air, or both to remove loose material before washing. Then pressure wash fine and packed debris. Then apply QAC sanitizer to cleaned and still-wet surfaces and allow the machine to dry without rinsing. Reinspect before the harvester leaves the field or yard.

Prototype work on installed wash systems suggests they can help with very specific hard-to-reach areas, such as front axle zones, and can add only a few minutes to cleaning time. But they are not a full-machine solution and are most useful where a narrow problem area has already been identified. As this work proves out in the field, those results will be added here.