Feasibility and Performance Evaluation of Power Tiller Operated Reaper in Hills of Himachal Pradesh

To mechanize the harvesting operation in hills and also to increase the annual use of power tiller with suitable matching equipment, front mounted NDUAT vertical conveyer reaper having 107 kg weight and 1.23 m width was tested at university farm as well as farmers’ field with 13 hp power tiller (VST 130 DI) for harvesting of wheat crop and compared with conventional method to see the feasibility. The field capacity of the reaper at the university farm and at farmers’ field was observed 0.14 ha/h and 0.094 ha/h, respectively at the forward speed of 1.78 km/h and 1.35 km/h with field efficiency of 64.22% and 56.62%. The total labour requirement including harvesting, collection, bundle making etc. with the machine was observed 57.14 man-h/ha and 75.63 man-h/ha at the university farm and farmers’ field, respectively whereas it was 173.11 man-h/ha with manual harvesting by sickle. The harvesting losses were recorded as 5.8% at the farm and 11.8% at farmers’ field, however, no pre-harvesting losses were reported. The capacity of machine at the farm was observed 93% more than the manual harvesting (0.009 ha/h) and saved 35% cost of operation with 2 times labour. The capacity of the machine at farmers’ field was observed 90% more as compared to manual system but harvesting losses was also more. The performance of the machine in big sized plots was observed good and it was not found feasible for small and irregular shaped plots of size less than 150 m2. However, a reaper having less width of coverage and light in weight will be more useful for smaller and irregular shaped fields as a power tiller attachment.