Background:
Garlic harvesting is considered one of the most time-consuming and laborious agricultural operations which requires about 50-60 man-days/ha. Traditionally, garlic is cultivated on flat beds. The practice of cultivating garlic on raised beds is gradually increasing. There are many benefits of cultivating garlic on raised beds, but one of the main advantages is that the tractor can be easily driven in the furrow between the beds. This laborious work can be easily done by mechanical means, thereby saving time, labor, and money. Working with a mechanical garlic harvester in vertisol soil is difficult under flat conditions but it can be made easier by making raised beds. Therefore, a garlic harvester has been developed for harvesting the garlic crop sown in raised beds.:
Technology Details:
A tractor-operated garlic harvester has been developed for harvesting garlic crops grown on raised beds (150 mm height, 1200 mm top width, and 300 mm furrow width). The machine consists of the main frame, circular disc, blade, conveying unit, gearbox, belt-pulley drive, and depth control wheel. Two cutting discs are provided to cut the furrow slice vertically. The triangular point blade having 10 knives is attached in front of conveying unit for its use in black cotton soil to loosen the soil and easy penetration. The machine has a chain type of conveying mechanism which rotates through belts and pulleys with the drive from tractor PTO. The garlic harvester has been evaluated in the garlic crop sown at 100 mm row-to-row and plant-to-plant spacing at 1.93 km/h forward speed and a working depth of 60-80 mm. The effective field capacity of the machine is 0.21 ha/h at a field efficiency of 72%. The harvesting efficiency and bulb damage during the operation are 97% and <0.5%, respectively.