Vol. 11, Special Issue 9 (2022)

Author(s):
Anurag Patel, Sheen Cline Moses, Prashant MD’Souza and Rana N Alam

Abstract:
The manual harvesting of sugarcane, only the removal of tops and leaves takes a major portion of the total time for harvesting. The conventional process of burning the tops results in the loss of biomass which could have been useful for other trash farming and source of energy. Also, the harvesting process causes drudgery and losses to the cultivators as of the labor shortage. The delay in harvesting affects the quality of the crop, the developed tractor-operated sugarcane leaf stripping machine is designed and fabricated by keeping in mind the need for a mechanized solution in especially in the harvesting process of sugarcane. The main components of the machine are the intake roller, blower unit, leaf stripping unit and power transmission system and tractor. The machine was tested on three varieties of sugarcane; MCO-238, K-269 and R-94184. The maximum leaf stripping efficiency for MCO-238, K-269 and R-94184 was obtained to be 87.27%, 86.59% and 87.50% respectively and the maximum damage on stalk was reported to be 5.25%, 5.32% and 7.19% respectively. The percentage reduction in cost is 58.23% as the cost reduced from Rs. 800 in manual mode to Rs. 334.26 in mechanised mode.