DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF OFFSET TYPE DIGGER FOR SUGARCANE + POTATO INTERCROPPING

Abstract

Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) and sugarcane (Saccharum officianarum L.) are the most important vegetable and sugar crops in India. Many researchers have concluded that the intercropping of these crops results in increased productivity per unit area and time for both these crops, hence results in better returns. However, potato harvesting in intercropping is a cumbersome process and requires a lot of manual labour which uses hand tools like khurpa. This results in significant quantity of cut and bruised potatoes. Therefore, an offset type digger for sugarcane+potato intercropping (SPIC) was developed and tested in field conditions for mechanizing digging operation. This equipment, besides being useful for potato digging, performs inter-row cultivation of sugarcane crop. Power requirement of this digger was found to be 35 hp with field capacity of 0.25 ha/h. Manpower requirement was found 60% lower as compared to manual digging, whereas tuber damage was less than 2%. There was no damage to sugarcane crop except occasional trampling.