Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

EFFECT OF OPERATIONAL PARAMETERS ON DIGGING EFFICIENCY OF MECHANICAL HARVESTING OF GROUNDNUT

N.B. Mareppa, M. Veerangouda, Vijayakumar Palled, Sushilendra, Nageshkumar, Satyanarayan5 and T.M. Ananda Kumar

Abstract

An experimental set-up of groundnut (Arachis hypogeae L) harvester having provision to vary operational parameters like rake angle, moisture content and forward speeds was designed and fabricated to study the effect of operational parameters on digging efficiency of mechanical harvesting for groundnut. The experiment was conducted to develop a mechanical harvester for harvesting groundnut and evaluate its performance at different levels of operational parameters viz., moisture contents (10, 12.5 and 15 %), rake angles (10, 15 and 20°) and forward speeds (1.5, 2 and 2.5 kmph). The performance of the digger was found to be better at 15 per cent moisture content with 15 degree rake angle at a forward speed of 2 km h-1. The maximum digging efficiency of 96.95 per cent was recorded while it was minimum 86.91 per cent at forward speed of 2.5 km h-1 with a rake angle of 10 degree and the effective field capacity and field efficiency were found to be 0.08 ha h-1 and 80 per cent respectively.