Abstract
A battery-operated walk-behind type vertical conveyer reaper (electric reaper) was designed and developed for harvesting cereal crops with reduced environmental pollution and cost of harvesting. It comprised a cutting unit, conveying unit, propelling unit, two DC motors and lead–acid batteries. A standard cutter bar with a total cutting width of 600 mm was used as the cutting unit. DC motors with controllers powered by batteries were used to operate the knife and propel the e-reaper fitted with 4.00–8 pneumatic wheels. The total weight of the e-reaper was 135 kg. The reaper could cut paddy crop satisfactorily at a stubble height varying from 50 to 80 mm and conveyed it to fall in a windrow. The field capacity of the electric reaper at an average forward speed of 1 km/h was found to be 0.06 ha/h with a cutting efficiency of 98% and a field efficiency of 66%. The total power consumed by the e-reaper in carrying out harvesting operation was found to be 872 W. The reaper was operated continuously for 2 h without any power breakdown. For recharging all the batteries, a total time period of 2 h was required. Noise and vibration produced by the electric reaper during harvesting of paddy crops were measured to be 9.9 m/s2 and 88 dB(A), respectively. It required three labours to cover one hectare with a total cost of harvesting as Rs. 2933(41 USD). Thus, it saved about Rs. 5161 (72.25 USD) per hectare as compared to manual harvesting.
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Acknowledgements
The financial support received from the National Initiative for Design Innovation (NID) sponsored by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Grant No. 15-1/2016-PN.1), Govt. of India is sincerely acknowledged.
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Sahoo, A.U., Raheman, H. Development of an electric reaper: a clean harvesting machine for cereal crops. Clean Techn Environ Policy 22, 955–964 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01838-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10098-020-01838-7