Development and Testing of Different Models of Coconut Dehusker

Abstract

Coconut is grown in more than 86 countries worldwide in 12.5 million hectares of land which constitute about 0.7 per cent of the net crop of the world (Theerkhapathy et al., 2014). India is the third largest coconut producing country, after Indonesia and the Philippines, having an area of about 1.78 million hectares under the crop. India’s annual production is about 7562 million nuts with an average of 5295 nuts/hectare (Shashikumar et al., 2014). Traditionally, the economic importance of coconut was laid on its nourishing water, kernel, copra, oil and coir, but laying emphasis on value addition and product diversification is widening the spectrum of its economy. Separation of its husk from the nut (dehusking) constitutes the, most difficult and dangerous operation in its processing. Presently, coconut dehusking with existing and popularly used models of coconut dehusking machines need the worker to bend from waist, to bring the coconut sharply down International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 7 Number 08 (2018) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas.com