Aluminium unipole ladder can replace bamboo pole used in harvesting of black pepper at Kollihills of Tamil Nadu

Tribal Sub Plan Scheme is being implemented by ICAR-KVK, Namakkal at Elangiyampatti, Kollihills since 2020. Here pepper is cultivated in an area of 80 ha. by 242 farmers. As pepper vines grow up to 4 -5 m height, manual harvesting which is only available method in Kollihills that requires a ladder and a skilled labour. Normally, single bamboo pole is used as a support to climb the shade trees of black pepper for harvesting. It is a very time-consuming activity with lot of difficulties and it is harmful to the vine. In order to avoid such situation in black pepper harvesting, KVK, Namakkal has introduced and supplied Aluminium ladder to the tribal farmers on cost sharing basis under TSP. Comparing the field efficacy of both the ladders, totally 4 pepper vines of 15 yr old or 6 vines of less than 10 yr old were harvested in a day by using bamboo pole when compared to aluminium ladder (6 - 8 vines respectively). In aluminium pole method, farmer could harvest 500 kg of green berries/day and spend only Rs.22500/0.4 ha alone for harvesting, besides saved up to Rs.13500/0.4 ha as against Rs.36000/0.4 ha in bamboo pole method.