Performance Evaluation of Soybean Reaper and Groundnut Pod Stripper

In the changing socio-economical scenario, Indian agricultural will sustain only through modernization process by means of agricultural engineering know how. The use of improved and precision machinery for harvesting operation such as 'self propelled vertical conveyor reaper' will make country self sufficient. The saving in labour time and cost of operation are the major advantages in the use of self propelled vertical conveyor reaper. The self propelled riding type vertical conveyor reaper was tested to access its performance. The test result indicated an average effective field capacity of 0.17 ha/hr at an average forward speed of 1.7 km/hr with 60 per cent efficiency. The vertical conveyor reaper is found to be suitable for reaping the crops up to 55 to 60 cm crop height. Operating cost of the machine was worked out to be Rs.115.27/hr. The average stripping rate per person of Groundnut Pod Stripping Machine was 5.84% which was higher than when operated with 3 operators and 2.48 times more than traditional hand stripping. This may be due to the reason that the free space available while working with 3 operators was comparatively less to give full output by the operators.