Grower invents cranberry harvesting machine

Brockman spent six years working in a paper mill before returning to the cranberry farm his father started in 1946. The idea for the ruby slipper came during hours of idle thinking while riding tractors or sitting in the silence of a stand while deer hunting, he said.

“I always approach just about everything with the idea that there’s a better way to do it. You just need to find it,” Brockman said. “I started cutting and welding and building. The first three machines didn’t work at all.”

He kept tinkering, developed a prototype two years ago and tested it in bogs. His father was dumbfounded.

“He is just a shaking his head: ’I can’t believe that thing works. It is way too easy. How did you ever think of that?”’ the son recalled.

Brockman picked two fields with the ruby slipper and the next year the crop came back even better. He hired a consultant who found evidence the return crop was 17 percent to 24 percent better than areas harvested with a conventional beater, suggesting his invention did less damage to the plants than conventional beaters.

As for how he came up with the name of his machine, Brockman had hunted in the Ruby Mountains in Nevada and thought Ruby was an attractive name. His invention quickly got to be called a stripper or picker, but he definitely didn’t want it known as a stripper.

His machine slips through the vines of ruby-colored cranberries — thus the ruby slipper.

“I am not a mad scientist. I just make things out of necessity to make my life easier. I always say if you want to find the best way to do something, get a lazy guy to do it. I guess I am lazy,” the cranberry grower said, laughing again.

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