“Development and Evaluation of a Portable Crop Harvester”

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Date
2019-10
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Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Jammu, Jammu
Abstract
The study was undertaken to develop and evaluate a portable crop harvester for the hilly region of Jammu & Kashmir state on wheat crop at Advanced Centre for Rainfed Agriculture (ACRA), Dhiansar, SKUAST-J, and Farmer’s Field, Chatha. The process of development of the prototype begin with a conceptual design based on computer aided design (CAD) software. The prototype consisted of a power source, cutting unit of machines (type of cutting blade) and crop conveying unit (crop guard).The effect of cutting blade (B1, B2, B3 and B4), crop guard (G1, G2 and G3) and dates of harvesting (D1, D2 and D3) were studied on harvesting losses (%), actual field capacity (ha/h) and field efficiency (%) at both the locations.The harvesting losses, actual field capacity and field efficiency increased with the delay in dates of harvesting for all treatment combinations under study. A combination of independent variables which resulted in post-harvest losses of 1.11 and 1.35%, actual field capacity of 0.0396 and 0.0375 ha/h and field efficiency of 63.43 and 62.55% was achieved at a treatment combination of B1G1D3at both the locations under study, respectively.The performance of the developed portable harvester was also compared with the traditional method of harvesting by sickle. The comparison was made in terms of harvesting losses, actual field capacity, field efficiency, labor required and operational cost at both locations. The labour requirement of sickle was almost five times more as compared to the developed portable harvester. The cost of harvesting of wheat was found to be maximum for manual harvesting by sickle at Rs. 5682 and 5684/ha, whereas the lowest cost was recorded with the developed portable harvester at Rs. 3566 and 3767/ha at both locations, respectively.
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