Adaptation and Performance Evaluation of Engine Operated Reaper

This harvesting machine targets the small scale farmers who have small land holding of less than 2 hectares. It has cutting blades which cut the crop in a scissoring type of motion. It runs on petrol engine of 5HP, this power from engine, is provided through pulley and chain-sprocket combination to the cutter. A collecting mechanism is provided for the collection of crops to one side after cutting. This mechanism is also powered by pulley arrangement. This compact reaper harvester is manufactured using locally available spare parts and thus, it is easily maintainable. The reaper might be the solution to the problems faced by a small scale farmer regarding cost and labour implementation. Field performance evaluation result shows that, 0.075 ha/hr and 67.57% of effective field capacity and field efficiency respectively. It took 13.33 hr to harvest 1 ha area and the fuel consumption was 13.99 l/ha or 1.05 lit/hr. After testing the reaper machine in farm it is found that the cost of harvesting using this reaper harvester is considerably less as compared to manual harvesting.