Design, Development and Evaluation of Manually Operated Seabuckthorn Fruit Harvesting Tools

作者：Vatsa D K^*; Singh Virendra

来源：AMA-Agricultural Mechanization in Asia Africa and Latin America, 2017, 48(3): 20-24.

In Himalayas, about 12,000 ha area is under seabuckthorn having no spacing from plant to plant and row to row as mostly wild/naturally grown and it is distributed widely in the cold arid regions of Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Ladakh region of Jammu & Kashmir and in some parts of Sikkim. Due to this reason, it is difficult to move in between the plants and introduce particular device/tools for all species. In addition, the fruit is very small and in bunches on the branches having thorn. Hence, the harvesting is performed manually by beating the branches of seabuckthorn with a stick and breaking off the branches from the mother plant on periphery and collecting only 15-20% of the available fruits of the orchards. In this method, a person cannot harvest more than 2 to 3 kg of ripe fruits per hour besides the plant was severely damaged also. For increasing capacity and efficiency, an indigenous manual harvesters i.e. comb, wire clip, branch shaker and clipper with handle type were designed and developed, which is simple in design, light in weight, cost effective and has minimum drudgery, to make the harvesting operation easier and more attractive to the users. The testing was carried out in two varieties i.e. Hippophae Rhamnoides and Hippophae Salcipholia of seabuckthorn at 2,500 m altitude. The capacity of the branch shaker and clipper were 5.0 and 6.2 kg/h with Rhamnoides and; 4.8 and 6.7 kg/h with Salcipholia, respectively which was 55-121% higher as compared to traditional. The damage to the fruits/berries was observed 108-171% higher in case of direct as compared to indirect method. The capacity was also observed higher in case of Salcipholia due to bigger size of fruit. Among all developed harvesters, the branch shaker having two half semi circular hooks (one fixed at upper end & another movable just below the top hook on one end of the pipe) and clipper with handle were found better. Moreover, the wire clip has also showed promising results but it is difficult to harvest in wild grown seabuckthorn orchards due to thorny nature of plant.

• 出版日期2017