Development and Comparative Performance of Manually Operated Tamarind Harvesters

Traditionally farmers have been using a variety of methods in tamarind harvesting instead of tools and machinery. In India, harvesters may merely shake the branches to cause mature fruits to fall and they leave the remainder to fall naturally when ripe. By using the modern wisdom, these traditional methods needed to standardized keeping in mind the economy of rural poor. Proper designing in accordance with the farmers requirements surely popularize these harvesters in future. Keeping these views in mind design and development of various tamarind harvesters (TH 1, TH 2 and TH 3) was taken at MAU, Parbhani, Maharashtra and comparing their performance with traditional method (TM). On the basis of harvesting output (kg/h), cost of operation (Rs/h), per cent damage and ease of operation, it was found that, the performance was better in case of TH 3 as 10.70kg/h, Rs 31.25/h and 10.71 per cent.