Performance evaluation of a lowland cabbage harvester prototype

Abstract

In Malaysia, round cabbage was planted in an area of 3,424 ha and 80,641 MT was produced in 2020. The shortage of workers is a major issue in large-scale cabbage cultivation. The most tedious and costly part was during the harvesting period since more workers were required. This article explained a modification and performance evaluation of a lowland cabbage harvester prototype. The prototype was designed and developed by MARDI in 2020. However, a few modifications were required to enhance the performance and efficiency of the developed prototype. A mechanism, which was called the reel system, was designed to ensure increased harvesting efficiency. The reel functioned as a puller mechanism to make sure the harvested cabbage was pulled smoothly to the conveyor system. The reel system also prevented the harvested cabbage from becoming stuck in the two cutting blades. It was driven by a 12V electric motor with 200W of power and connected to a gearbox, chain, and sprocket to increase the torque delivery. An evaluation performance test was carried out and the results showed that the effective field capacity was 0.065 ha/hr, with an average speed of 0.54 km/hr and 60.2% machine field efficiency. Only 14.4 man-hr/ha was required for the cabbage harvester while manual harvesting required 28.9 man-hr/ha. This represents a labour saving of about 50% when using the cabbage harvester.