Traditional methods of orange harvesting followed in the north-eastern hill region of India include snatching or pulling of fruits with hand, hitting fruits/branches with a stick, shaking treel branches, etc. These methods are quite cumbersome and cause considerable damage to fruits and adversely affecting their quality Besides these, many farmers also use a peculiar device made of bamboo. It was modified by using steel wires and mild steel pipes instead of bamboo strips. After its intensive testing, further modifications were done to develop different types of manual orange harvesters such as Push and Twist type, Hold and Twist type and Pull and Cut type. These improved picking aids of fer advantages over local methods by saving time and labour and protecting fruits from damage. A cloth conveyor is used for taking fruits safely to the ground after detachment by avoiding any impact damage due to free fall. The harvesting rate of about 300 fruits I man-hour could be achieved by using these devices with 4 - 12% damage rates. It is found that although there exists no definite relationship of work rate with time out, the efficiency of workman goes down in general while working continuously for longer time.
