Vol. 11, Special Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Kawale Nagendra, Anantachar M, Ramappa KT, Sushilendra, Praveen Jholgikar, Veerangouda M, Prakash KV and Krishnamurthy D

Abstract:
Manual harvesting of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe,) is time consuming, inefficient and full of drudgery hence, mechanization of ginger harvesting is the need of the hour. The harvester should satisfy the basic requirements of achieving maximum harvesting efficiency with minimum damage to the crop and at a lesser cost. Hence an investigation was undertaken to design different components of tractor operated ginger harvester cum elevator. The size of the harvester suitable as per the agro technical features of the crop was taken in to consideration during the design of the ginger harvester-cum elevator. It consists of two components; a digging unit and an elevator unit. Fabrication of inverted V-type blade was made up of M.S. material. The length, width and thickness of the blade designed were 1000, 200 and 10 mm, respectively. The blade was mounted on the machine at an angle that can be varied from 15-25 degree with the horizontal. It was positioned at the front end of the conveyor. Soil-rhizome separating unit consisted of a conveyor having dimensions of 1115x1100 mm. The conveyor unit is made up of MS rods spaced at 30 mm. The angle of the elevator was kept at 20 degrees to the vibration unit. The power to the elevator conveyor was provided through a gear box through a belt and pulley drive system. The power required for harvesting including conveying operation was worked out to be 45-60 hp.