1Research Scholar, Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT, Kharagpur-721302
2Research Scholar, Department of Hydrology, IIT, Roorkee-247667
3Professor, Faculty of Agricultural Engineering, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswvidyalaya, Mohanpur, West Bengal-741252
*Corresponding author's email: naveenbckv24@gmail.com
Online published on 29 March, 2018.
A bullock operated single row potato digger was modified to be used as an attachment to power tiller, by considering the power availability after complete removal of rotavator tillage assembly. It consisted of a frame, blade with share point, tool shank, extended screw and depth control wheel. An offset beam was provided to adjust the blade to the left and right to the power tiller. The performance of the power tiller operated potato digger was evaluated for harvesting at 40 cm x 60 cm spacing in the field for forward speed of 1km/h and also compared with manual digging. The effective field capacity and field efficiency were found to be 0.105 ha/h and 77% respectively. The developed digger was found very economical as it reduced cost by 60% over manual digging using spade.
Potato digger, Field capacity, Field efficiency, Mechanical harvesting
