DEVELOPMENT OF POWER TILLER ATTACHMENT FOR CABBAGE HARVESTING
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Date
2020
Authors
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Publisher
Indira Gandhi Krishi Vishwavidyalaya, Raipur
Abstract
Chhattisgarh ranks at 8th position in the production of cabbage in India. Area covered in Chhattisgarh was about 20168 ha with production 374370 tonnes. In India it covers about 4% of total area under production. It is currently grown throughout the year. It is cultivated in 0.310 Mha with the total production of 6.870 mt with an average productivity of 22.1 mt/ha.
Harvesting of cabbage is the most important operation in the field. In field, this operation is carried out manually which is very time consuming and labour requirement is also very high which leads to poor economy for the farmers. A fruitful harvesting mechanism need to be introduced for increasing economy of cabbage growing farmers. For the development, some investigation carried out for harvesting of cabbage. This cutting unit may help in reducing the problem of cabbage harvesting. In agricultural practice, cost economics is most important term; In order to save the cost of operation by saving the time and labour requirement a cabbage cutting unit was developed. To develop a cutting unit for cabbage, many things are considered. The new developed device performed well in the field without much damaging the plants; the cutting blade is made of hardened MS sheet therefore it has long life and lower cost of operation. A cabbage cutting unit was attached with the power tiller to perform the harvesting operation.
To select the best mechanical parameter the performance of developed cutting attachment was tested in different conditions by changing the cutting angle (A1=3º below horizontal, A2=0º with horizontal, A3=3º above horizontal), cutting height (H1=300 mm, H2=350 mm and H3=400 mm) and operational speeds (S1=1.5 km/h, S2=2.0 km/h, S3=3.0 km/h) of power tiller. The performance was evaluated in terms of effective field capacity, field efficiency, harvesting loss, cost of operation and energy analysis. It was found that by increasing the speed of operation effective field capacity, field efficiency and fuel consumption increases. On the other hand, decrease in field efficiency was obtained by change in cutting angle and cutting height and harvesting loss was increased by change in cutting angle, cutting height and operational speed. Average travelling speed of power tiller was 2.16 km/h. It was found normal, same as power tiller works in the normal field condition. Fluctuation of operational speed was negligible as compared to normal working condition. Fuel consumption of power tiller was 1.19 l/h which varies with the operational speed of power tiller. Effective field capacity of power tiller attachment was in the range of 0.058-0.155 ha/h. Field efficiency was found 51.56 to 69.56 %. Harvesting loss was obtained in the range of 3.33 to 36.67 % depending on cutting angle and cutting height. Fabrication cost and operational cost of power tiller attachment was found Rs.1490 and 901.48 Rs/ha respectively.
Description
DEVELOPMENT OF POWER TILLER ATTACHMENT FOR CABBAGE HARVESTING