Abstract: The invention provides a device for the mechanical separation of cuttings from a (plant) branch, having a carrier for a branch which is to be processed, a conveyor track, which interacts therewith, for presenting a branch, which is supported by a carrier, to an imaging unit, which is used to determine the position of an axil with side branch of a presented branch with respect to a reference and which supplies this position-representative information to a separation device for separating a cutting, the conveyor track being an endless track having as its starting point the location where the branch is presented to the carrier and as its end point the location where the branch is assessed, while the controlled separation device comprises a reduction and clamping mechanism which can be adjusted both in a vertical plane and in a horizontal plane and cuts the assessed branch firstly at a lower level with respect to the axil and then an upper level with respect to the axil.