Performance Evaluation of Tractor Mounted Hydraulic Elevator

Due to increase of height of horticultural crops it is difficult to harvesting and pruning. Some equipments & hand tools are available in market for harvesting and pruning, but those tools are non-useful for harvesting due to untrained labour, taller trees & high cost of equipment. Some mechanical equipments & machines are available in market for this purpose but this equipments & machines are very costly and require large space for holding hence it is very difficult to harvesting pruning of horticultural crops. Some skills are required for labours to climb on trees by using this available equipment hence to overcome & reduce this problem Tractor Mounted Hydraulic Elevator (TMHE) power by tractor PTO was tested for the mechanical harvesting and pruning of crops using digital load cell, Vibration meter, and digital Tachometer. Elevator stability study and pruner performance of the above machine was carried out on various crops at Dr. Balasaheb Sawant Kokan Krishi Vidyapeeth, Dapoli. Performance of various machines was tested for various varieties of crops. The study of Stability of machine has been done by using Digital weighing gauge The Reaction of front wheel of tractor with ground can be measured at various height on the of harvesting bucket are measured during rising and lowering action of harvesting bucket. Also the frequency analysis of elevator upper arm was studied by using theoretical methods. The study shows that, machine is stable up to 12 m height with load inside the bucket is 120 kg and angle of Bucket is 120 Degree to the turn table. The field testing of Tractor Mounted Hydraulic Elevator was conducted on Mango orchard at horticulture department, Dr. BSKKV, Dapoli, for different varieties. The average weight of fruits harvested per hour using Tractor Mounted Hydraulic Elevator was 58.84 kg/hr.