DEVELOPMENT AND ECONOMIC EVALUATION OF CARROT HARVESTER CUM TRIMMER

Traditionally in Pakistan most of carrots are harvested either by adopting a complete manual harvesting method in which a series of manual practices such as digging and picking of carrots from the field, removal of green leafs and filling in bags for further cleaning/ washing of carrot are performed or semi mechanized method in which only digging and loosening of carrot on beds is done by using tractor operated carrot digger whereas all other reaming operations are performed manually. Consequently, the harvesting of carrot is most laborious and time consuming operation among its all farm operations due to narrow time span for harvesting. hence in order to address the carrot harvesting issue, two row tractor operated carrot harvester cum trimmer was designed and developed by Agriculture Mechanization Research Institute (Research Division), Faisalabad, Pakistan to dig, separate, de-top and collect carrots simultaneously during 2019-20. The main components of harvester were digging unit, lifting unit, soil separation unit, trimming unit, carrot storage bin, leaf slides and hydraulic power transmission system. Forward speed of 2.5 km/hr, belt speed of 0.75 m/s, rake angle of 25 degree and belt inclination angle of 24 degree was best combination to achieve optimum performance of machine such as overall efficiency of machine is 72.97% with combination of Lifting efficiency of 88 %, conveying efficiency of 93.9%, belt losses of 6.1 %, trimming efficiency of 87%, damage percentage of 11 % and carrot root quality of 89%. Hence the use of carrot harvester cum trimmer was efficient and economically viable operation with the 63.04% and 86.4 % saving in cost and labor reduction as compared to traditional method.