Study and development of suitable pineapple harvesting attachment on brush cutter

Abstract

A prototype of pineapple harvester as an attachment for brush cutter was developed. The cutting element of the brush cutter used was circular blade. The attachment consists of a square plate, a rectangular flat connecting plate, a round base plate, a welded mesh cover and two crop guides and the whole attachment is mounted vertically above the round blade at an inclination of 15 degree with the horizontal. The square plate is used for mounting the attachment on the brush cutter. A flat plate is used as the connecting plate and it acts as a connecting member between the square plate and the base plate of attachment. A circular sheet is used as the base plate. The base plate will act as a platform for holding the pineapple. A welded mesh is used to cover 3/4 th of the circumference of the base plate up. The purpose of the welded mesh cover is to keep the fruit inside. Each of the two crop guides consist of three GI wires. The crop guides provide a spring action for gathering the fruit along with some leaves. The fuel consumption per ha is 70 l. The cost of harvesting is Rs. 178 per h. It is estimated that by the adoption of mechanical harvesting 11 labours are required for completing the harvesting of one ha land in one day. Hence time for harvesting can be saved to 75 % and cost to 11% compared to manual harvesting. The difficulties in manual harvesting can also be reduced since the harvesting operation is done from a distance.