Performance evaluation of single row tractor operated carrot digger

Harvesting is one of the most critical operation in carrot cultivation because it is labour intensive (350 – 450 man-h/ha) and time consuming for the farmers. The present study was undertaken to evaluate the performance of single row tractor operated carrot digger designed by department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, COAE&T, CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar, Haryana, India. The developed digger consisted of a digging, conveying, de-topping, collector and power transmission units. The carrot digger can be operated with 35 horse power tractor. It was evaluated under three variables viz., three digging blade angles (15°, 18°, 21°), three conveyor angles (25°, 35°, 45°) and three shoot catch heights (2, 4, 6 cm). The optimum value of variables obtained for operation of carrot digger were blade angle of 21°, conveyor angle of 250 and shoot catch height of 2 cm. Effective field capacity of the digger was 0.11 ha h-1 with field efficiency of 61.70 %. The digging efficiency, cut carrots, bruised carrots, picking efficiency and cutting efficiency of de-topping unit were 100, 0.62, 0.90, 62.29 and 100%, respectively at optimized value of operational variables. The labour requirement with developed carrot digger and manual method of harvesting was found 27 and 450 man-h ha-1, respectively. The operational cost of carrot digger was found Rs. 8242 ha-1 and it saves time and cost of operation in comparison to manual method of carrot harvesting. The break-even point, payback period and benefit cost ratio were 234 hours, 2.21 years and 1.56, respectively when operated for 400 hours annually. The carrot digger works better if carrots are sown in single row on the ridges rather than the broadcasting method.