Human resource-use efficiency in relation to different rounds of harvesting and yield in cardamom

A field trial was undertaken in cardamon plantations to study the labour requirement in relation to their efficiency of work in various rounds of picking of wet capsules and to derive the recovery percentage of dry capsules to wet capsules to know the per cent incremental growth in picking of cardamom during various rounds to very preceding round of picking. The increasing (up to third round), constant (fourth and eighth round) and decreasing (ninth round onwards) returns to yield was noticed confirming to the principle of diminishing returns. However, recovery of dry capsules to wet capsules has been consistent between 19.65 (minimum) and 23.00% (maximum) with an average of 21.72% for 11 rounds of picking. The labour efficiency measures show that for every man equivalent per annum (250 hr/annum), on an average, 1% of the area is cropped and about 3.20 hr more work is drawn for the unit area of 1 ha. This shows that there is an efficient utilization of labour force in each round of picking, stressing the importance of women labourers, especially employed for their skill and patience in picking of physiologically matured capsules.