Development and Evaluation of Power Tiller Operated Harvester for Small Onion

Harvesting of small onion crop is an important operation in cultivation of small onion, which has to be carried out at optimum crop maturity to minimize field losses. The small onion harvesters available in India cause more bulb damage and they are not suitable for small scale farmers. A power tiller operated small onion harvester was developed with a digging tool, conveyor and a leveler. The machine and operational parameters influencing the performance of onion harvester include rake angle, forward speed and moisture content of soil. The parameters were analyzed for their effects on harvesting efficiency and the optimized parameters were used to carry out field performance evaluation. Force analysis was carried out for the developed digging tool. The results of the testing of developed small onion harvester indicated maximum harvesting efficiency, bulb damage of , actual field capacity, theoretical field capacity and field efficiency of 97.4%, 1.6%, 0.068 ha h -1 , 0.062 ha h -1 and 85.2%, respectively. The cost of harvesting of small onion with the developed harvester was Rs. 918/ha.