Design, Development and Evaluation of Pepper Harvester
Keywords:
Black pepper, labour shortage and pepper harvester.Abstract
Kerala is the leading producer of Black Pepper, king of spices in India. The harvesting of pepper is of great concern to the farmers. The shortage of harvesting labour and their high wages causes burden to pepper farmers. The delay in harvest reduces the quality. The machine developed was expected to bridge the gap between supply and demand of pepper. The machine basically consists of a motor, main frame, harvesting and conveying unit and collecting bag. Primary testing of the developed model was conducted under field condition. The tests revealed that developed model was the most successful and effective for harvesting pepper due to its harvested pepper conveying mechanism towards the collecting bag. With few modifications, the harvester could be made available for commercial production.
References
Dale A, Hanson E, Yarborough D, McNicol R, Stang E, Brennan R, Morris J R and Hergert G. 2010. Mechanical Harvesting of Berry Crops. Horticultural Reviews 16:255-382. 10.1002/9780470650561.ch8.
Farooqi AA, Sreeramu BS and Srinivasappa, KN. 2005. Cultivation of spice crops. Universities Press.
Hema M, Kumar R and Singh NP. 2007. Volatile price and declining profitability of black pepper in India: Disquieting future. Agricultural Economics Research Review 20(1): 61–76.
Joy N, Abraham Z and Soniya EV. 2007. A preliminary assessment of genetic relationships among agronomically important cultivars of black pepper. BMC genetics 8(1): 42.
Jyoti B. 2018. Effect of blade angles and thickness on specific cutting energy and cutting index of cassava stem. Journal of AgriSearch 5(2):126-129.
Klaoudatos DS, Moulianiti VC and Aspragathos NA.2019. Development of an Experimental Strawberry Harvesting Robotic System. 437-445. 10.5220/0007934004370445.
Muhammed Abounajmi. 2004. Mechanization of Date Fruit Harvester. Package of Practice. KAU. Thrissur.
Muhammed CP. 2005. Agricultural Engineering Technologies-A Compilation of the technologies developed at KAU: 19-26.
Pedapati Anitha, Tyagi Vandana, Singh Anil K, Verma Nidhi, Yadav SK, Singh SP, Singh Surender and Brahmi Pratibha. 2014. Spices and Condiments: Status of Genetic Resources and setting priorities for Introduction in India. Envi. and Ecol. 32(3A): 1051-1056.
Thankamani CK, Srinivasan V, Dinesh R, Santosh JE and Rajeev P.2008. Black pepper. Extension Booklet. Published by Indian Institute of Spice Research, Calicut, India. pp:26.
Varlamov GP and Gabuniya VG. 1990. Picking sea buck thorn fruit by suction air stream. Traktory i sel’skokhozyaistvennye Mashiny 1:29–30.
