A mushroom packaging system 10 comprising a mushroom packaging apparatus 11 wherein empty containers 12 are at least partially filled with mushrooms 13. The system further comprises a mushroom loading apparatus 14 comprising a mushroom loading station 15 and a mushroom conveyor 16 for retaining and conveying mushrooms loaded thereon by an operator to the mushroom packaging apparatus 11. A container storage apparatus 50 is also provided which provides a container loading station 17 positioned such that an operator may load empty containers 12 thereinto. A container conveyance apparatus 22 conveys empty containers 12 from the container storage apparatus 50 to a packaged mushroom collection station 18 via the mushroom packaging apparatus 11. Packaged mushrooms 19 received at the packaged mushroom collection station 18 may be retrieved by the operator. A single operator may load mushrooms to the mushroom loading station 15, load containers to the container loading station 17, and retrieve containers from the packaged mushroom collection station 18.

The present disclosure relates generally to a container tray for harvesting a plurality of commercially cultivated button-type mushrooms. The present disclosure discusses a mushroom harvesting container tray that cannot only be used for temporarily storing the harvested (picked) mushrooms during the harvesting (picking) process, but the tray can also effectively store and retain the untrimmed mushrooms in place during trimming such that the mushroom stems may be trimmed while being housed in the tray, thereby substantially increasing the efficiency of harvesting mushrooms. For example, the tray holds the mushroom steady while a blade or other cutting mechanism simultaneously trims a plurality of mushroom stems. The present disclosure also relates to a sorting device that determines whether the mushrooms are acceptable and removes the acceptable mushrooms from the tray after the stems have been cut and simultaneously sorts the acceptable mushrooms according to their respective size, shape, color, weight and/or other feature, while also separating or rejecting the unacceptable mushrooms.

A mushroom packing apparatus (10) comprises a conveyor (12) having a mushroom loading section (30) and an unloading end (42) for unloading the mushrooms into a container (16); a mushroom stem cutter (56): a movable support platform (14) for the container adjacent to the unloading end with weighing means (66) for determining the weight of the loaded mushrooms; the unloading end (42) being movable into a plurality of positions relative to the container; the movable support platform being movable such that a plurality of locations in the container are moved into a position proximate to the unloading end. The apparatus results in increased picking speed. It can load each till or box to the target weight, and fill tills when they are in lugs, so workers do not need to handle individual filled tills.