Vol. 10, Special Issue 2 (2021)

Author(s):
DD Tekale and Dr. GU Shinde

Abstract:
The cotton harvesting is the major problems faced by the farmers by using female or male labors and near about 30% cost of cultivation of the cotton crop is required for harvesting of cotton. Manual picking of cotton is labour intensive, requiring 1565 man hours per hectare. Also day by day availability of labors is going to decreasing and small hand operated cotton pickers are not suitable for harvesting cotton on large areas. Therefore the Pneumatic suction based cotton boll picking machine to suit one operator was developed for small and marginal farmers. And compare the performance of pneumatic suction cotton picking machine with manual picking method An investigation was carried out to ergonomically evaluate the cotton picker by determining cardio respiratory stress. Six subjects were selected for the study and they were standardized and calibrated. Heart rate were computed using polar heart rate monitor. it was observed that the working heart rate was higher (108.33 ± 1.630 beat/min) in cotton picker method as compared to the manual method(99.66 ± 2.301 beat/min). the physiological cost is lower (124.83 ± 5.528 beat/kg of cotton) incase of cotton picker method than the manual method (469.50 ± 25.367 beat/kg of cotton) of cotton picking. The mean output capacity i.e. quantity of cotton picked per thousand heart beats were 2.13 ± 0.115 kg under manual method and 8.02 ± 0.347 kg using cotton picker The field capacity of cotton picker was determined as 126 kg/day as compared to 25.6 kg/day in case of manual method.