Vol. 12, Issue 11 (2023)

Author(s):
M Gowtham, B Suthakar, A Surendrakumar, R Kavitha and P Masilamani

Abstract:
India is the second largest producer of neem in the world by producing 4.4 lakh tonnes of neem yielding 88,440 tonnes of oil and 3.5 lakh tonnes of cake annually. Manual ground collection of neem fruit is a time-consuming and laborious process and takes 30 percent of harvesting time. Hence, the simple mechanical type for picker and collector for collecting the neem fruits from the ground was developed based on the pertinent physical parameters. It was observed that the moisture content of 81.95%, axial dimensions viz. 15.57 mm length, 9.25 mm width and 8.87 mm thickness of the fruits, 14.07 mm as geometric mean diameter, as 352 g.cm­^-1 bulk density and 290.88 g as the weight of hundred neem fruits. The developed prototype consists of picker assembly, ejector assembly, collector assembly, connector frame and handle and traction wheel. The performance evaluation of neem fruits was assessed in the field evaluation. The collection capacity of the mechanical type neem fruit picker collector was 48 kg h^-1 and the cost of neem fruit collection was Rs. 1.5 per kg. The prototype mechanical type picker collector is resulted in 97.3% saving in time and 95% saving in cost when compared with conventional method of collection and 79% saving in time and 41% saving in cost when compared with existing pneumatic type ground collection system. The cost of the developed prototype is Rs. 3500. The break-even point of the developed prototype was 1180 kg yr^-1. The time needed to recover the cost of the unit was 0.25 years.