Performance Evaluation of Adjustable Elevator for Tractor Drawn Potato Digger

Abstract

Potato is the major crop grown in country. It is rich source of carbohydrate, used all over the country. Potato is harvested when it attains the physiologic maturity. Potato harvesting is time consuming operation due to its various activity taken place at the same time. There is different equipment of harvesting the potato from the field. This equipment is tractor operated, animal drawn, or hand operated. Tractor operated potato digger cum elevator is mainly used for digging and exposing potato tubers simultaneously. The digger was found to perform very well under varying soil condition. A potato digger cum elevator was designed and constructed which is capable of digging potato with a minimum of injury working on the principle of digging and elevating the soil and potatoes simultaneously. It reduces 75% labour and 50% operating time consumed to conventional method of manual digging with spades, kudali and khurpi. It also results in 4-5% reduction in harvesting losses. The tractor drawn potato digger elevator was found highly economical, time saving, reducing labour charges with minimum damages. The test results of Potato Digger cum Elevator are actual field capacity is 0.30 – 040 ha/h, Digging efficiency (%) is 94–96, Cutting of tubers (%) is 1.8, Field efficiency (%) is 76.5. It was observed that at a elevator height of 40cm the implement is working more efficient rather than at other heights. It was found that there was no damage loss, bruising loss, cutting loss and also there was no bouncing of the tubers on the elevator while digging. Introduction