SELECTIVE PITTER FOR FRUITS

Apparatus and methods are described for pitting fruit of the drupe type in a cyclical manner in a processing operation involving a series of processing steps in which fruit having a sound pit is torque pitted and fruit having a split pit is spoon pitted. In the apparatus and method the presence or absence of a fruit to be supplied to the pitting station from a preceding station is sensed and the cyclical operation of the process and the apparatus with the cyclical sequence of steps and machine operations is varied depending upon whether a fruit is presented to the pitting station during a cycle of operation or not, and if a fruit so presented has a sound or split pit. When a fruit having a split pit is presented, a coring spoon spaced from the pit gripping portion of fruit bisecting blades is moved into position by moving the blades and coring spoon through the fruit and between the halves of the split pits for cutting a core including the split pit from the fruit. If no fruit is presented during a cycle of operation the fruit gripping structure at the pitting station is disabled.