DEVELOPMENT OF SILKWORM COCOON HARVESTER FOR SILKWORM MOUNTAGES
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Date
2018-08-01
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University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore
Abstract
India stands second in the world in production of silk with 35 MT next to China
and contributes 2.57 per cent to national GDP. Cocoon harvesting is one of the major
labour-intensive operations in silk production. In India, cocoons are hand-picked by human labour. Manual harvesting of cocoons is labour-intensive and also a time-consuming process. To overcome this, the battery-operated cocoon harvester was developed to suit for one-man operation. The major components of the cocoon harvester are a battery of 12V 7AH, DC motor of capacity 11W, rotating nylon brush and a collection bag. The weight of the cocoon harvester was 700 g and weight of the battery was 2.35 kg. The experiment was conducted at the college of sericulture, Chintamani to pick cocoons from the bamboo mountage using the battery-operated cocoon harvester. The output capacity, picking efficiency, trash content, reeling and hardness of cocoon were calculated at different Nylon brush lengths (130,150 mm), Nylon brush fibre thickness (0.3,0.6 mm) and Rotating nylon brush speeds (1900,2300 rpm). The best results are obtained at 130 mm nylon brush length, 0.6 mm nylon brush fibre thickness and 2300 rpm rotating nylon brush speed with output capacity of 51.66 g per min, picking efficiency of 96 per cent, Trash content of 0.7 percent, filament length of 1035 m and hardness of 4.7 kg respectively. The cost of operation of battery-operated cocoon harvester was 15.7 Rs per kg. This harvester has saved 35.21 per cent of time as compared to manual harvesting.