Development and performance evaluation of a tractor operated Chinese potato harvester
Abstract
Manual harvesting of Chinese potato tubers is labour intensive, time consuming and tedious. An averageof 100 female labourers and 20 male labourers are needed to harvest one acre of Chinese potato tubers.To mitigate labour shortages and to reduce harvesting costs, a tractor operated prototype Chinese potatoharvester has been designed and developed to harvest the tubers grown in ridge and furrow system.The harvester comprises of a main frame, digging system, discharge system, power transmission systemand transport system. It can cover three ridges with a spacing of 30 cm and a depth of operation of 15cm. The performance evaluation of the developed unit was conducted, and the operational parameterswere standardized. The digging unit of the harvester was tested with different treatment combinationsof blade geometries viz., inverted V shape, crescent shape and straight type blade at different rake anglesof 15, 20 and 25° and at different forward operating speeds of 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 km h-1. The effects dueto these parameters were optimized based on performances parameters viz., digging efficiency, per centdamage and fuel consumption by numerical optimization technique. The maximum digging efficiencyof 97.28 per cent was noticed for inverted V type digging blade, whereas the lowest of 82.37 per centwas obtained for straight shaped blade. The least percent damage of 3.42 per cent was for the invertedV shape blade and the highest of 9.91 per cent was recorded for straight blade. Among the differenttypes of blade geometry, the maximum (6.24 l h-1) and minimum (4.75 l h-1) fuel consumptions wereobtained for straight blade and inverted V shape blade, respectively. The cost per hectare of harvestingusing the developed harvester was determined to be ` 18,400/- per hectare compared to ` 1,12,500/-for harvesting manually, with a cost savings ` 94,100/- per hectare.Keywords: Chinese potato, Harvester, Manual harvesting, Labour shortage, Mechanical harvesting
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Dear Author(s)
We need your written permission before we can publish your accepted article in the Journal of Root Crops. Please read this form carefully, complete it and palace your signature below. A scanned copy of this form may be mailed to us within two days of receipt of this letter. Our email ID is: isrc_ctcri@yahoo.com or editor_jrc@yahoo.com or sreekumarctcri@gmail.com
Details:
In consideration of the publication in the Journal of Root Crops of our contribution entitled
(Name of the paper): .................................................................................................................
.................................................................................................................................................... by us (all Authors’ names) ..........................................................................................................
....................................................................................................................................................
A. To be filled in if copyright belongs to you
I/we hereby assign to Indian Society for Root Crops, Thiruvananthapuram, India, the full copyright in all forms and media in the said contribution, including open/ restricted access to online version. They own the rights to freely grant or distribute the paper to any third party or public
Please tick this box if you are the sole author of the paper
Please tick this box if you are authorised to execute this copyright transfer on behalf of all the authors of the above article
Name (block letters): . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .......
Institution/Company:..................................................................................................................
....................................................................................................................................................
Signature:.....................................................................; Date: ....................................................
B. To be filled in if copyright does not belong to you
1. Name and address of copyright holder:................................................................................
........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................
2. The copyright holder hereby grants Indian Society for Root Crops, Thiruvananthapuram, India the full copyright in all forms and media in the said contribution, including open/ restricted access to online version. They own the rights to freely grant or distribute the paper to any third party or public.
(Signature of copyright holder or authorised agent)
