Development of Pepper Harvester

Abstract

Kerala is the leading producer of Black Pepper, king of spices in India. The farmers are well aware about the excellent export potentials of pepper, pepper by-products and their value- addition. The harvesting of pepper is of great concern to the farmers. The shortage of harvesting labour and their high wages causes burden to pepper farmers. Under the project entitled “Development of Pepper Harvester”, three models were fabricated. The objectives considered for the development of the tool was incorporated during the fabrication phase. Primary testing of the developed models were conducted under field condition. The tests revealed that Model no. 2 was the most successful and effective for harvesting pepper.