Abstract

The conventional methods used for harvesting fruits are crude, laborious and time consuming. The fruit harvesting systems employing vibratory mechanism and mechanical harvesting prevalent in the advanced countries cannot be adopted in Indian conditions. With a view of simplifying the fruit harvesting operation, a manual fruit harvester was developed and tested. Three types of blade viz. curved blade, V-shaped blade and scissor type blade were fabricated and attached with the harvester. The field capacity and good fruit percentage by the three blades were determined for five important fruit crops. The combination of V-shaped harvester for pomegranate fruit gave maximum field capacity. The good fruit percentage was found to be more in lime. Guava was subjected to maximum damage due to its soft and smooth skin.

Keywords: Fruit harvester