Comparative Performance Evaluation of Paddy Harvesting

Harvesting of field crops constitute one of the most labour consuming operations of farming in India. Farmers mainly follow manual method of paddy harvesting by using conventional sickles. Mechanical methods of crop harvesting are least practiced at present. Therefore, one treatment was taken to harvest the paddy crop by using conventional sickle, and two treatments were based on mechanical harvesting equipment. Moisture content of soil sample at harvest condition was 13.46% and paddy grain 19.91% (d. b.) & 16.61% (w. b.). In three treatments viz. manually harvesting by sickle, mini-tractor mounted reaper and self-propelled reaper, actual field capacity obtained were 0.0045, 0.2208 and 0.1051 ha/hr (ha/man-hr) respectively and field efficiency (inpercent) was observed to be 36.60, 58.37 and 58.39 respectively. Financial savings of about 63.30% and 43.84% in cost of harvesting over conventional method (manual harvesting by sickle) could be made by mini-tractor mounted reaper and self-propelled reaper respectively.