DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF A SINGLE ROW TRACTOR DRAWN GINGER HARVESTER

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ABSTRACT

The tractor-drawn single row ginger rhizome harvester was the designed, fabricated and its performance was evaluated in terms of effective field capacity, field efficiency, and percentage rhizome damage. It consists of two main units; the rectangular support component and the digging component. The rectangular support measures 900 mm by 700 mm provided the support of which the digger and the three-point linkage are attached. The digging component comprises a V-shaped digger blade with a length of 670 mm, a width of 50 mm, and a thickness of 5 mm.  The harvester was operated at forward speeds of 0.63 m/s, 0.8 m/s, and 1.8 m/s, rake angles of 16o and 32o, and depth of cut of 8 cm, 10 cm, and 12 cm in a split-split plot design. The harvester's draught was measured using an electronic dynamometer; an average draught force and power were evaluated and recorded as 0.856 kN and 1.19 kW, respectively. Other machine parameters were field capacity, theoretical field capacity, and efficiency obtained ranges from 0.0225-0.0655 ha/h, 0.318-0.90 ha/h, and 68-95%, respectively. Hence, a split-split plot was used to analyse the interaction of speed, depth of cut, and rake angle.  Analysis of Variance showed significant effects on harvesting ginger rhizomes, and no significant effects were demonstrated in other parameters at p ≤ 0.05.  Response surface was used to obtain the optimum value of speed as 1.3 m/s and depth of cut of 8cm at rake angle either 16o or 32o. Finally, the ginger harvester offered minimal bruise to the ginger rhizomes of approximately 0.5%, thus easy to operate, reliable, and recommended for farmers' use.




TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page                                                                                                                                i

Declaration                                                                                                                             ii

Certification                                                                                                                           iii

Dedication                                                                                                                              iv

Acknowledgement                                                                                                                 v

Table of Contents                                                                                                                   vi

List of Tables                                                                                                                         x

List of Figures                                                                                                                         xi

Abstract                                                                                                                                  xiii

 

Chapter 1        INTRODUCTION                                                                                                                   

1.1       Background of the Study                                                                                              1

1.2       Statement of Problem                                                                                                   2

1.3       Objectives of the Study                                                                                                4

1.3.1    General objective of the study                                                                                      4

1.3.2    Specific objectives of the study                                                                                    4

1.4       Justification of the Study                                                                                              4

1.5       Scope of the Work                                                                                                        5                                 

Chapter 2       LITERATURE REVIEW                                                                                                          

2.1       Historical Background of Ginger                                                                                 6

2.2       Ginger Production in Nigeria                                                                                       7

2.3       Agronomy of Ginger Production                                                                                  8

2.4       Global Ginger Production                                                                                           14

2.5       Ginger Processing                                                                                                                                                                    17

2.5.1    Preparing Ginger for the Market                                                                                                                                             17

2.5.2    Ginger processing mechanisms                                                                                   21

2.5.3    Slicing / Splitting mechanisms                                                                                    21

2.5.4    Composition of Ginger Rhizomes                                                                               22

2.6       Economic Importance of Ginger                                                                                 23

2.7       Engineering Properties of Ginger                                                                                26

2.7.1    The physical properties of Ginger                                                                                                                                           26

2.7.2    The mechanical properties of Ginger and other Tuber Crops                                               29

2.8       Root and Tuber Crops Harvesting                                                                               31

2.9       Development in Ginger Harvesting Machinery                                                          35

2.9.1    Manual harvesting of Ginger                                                                                       35

2.9.2    Mechanical harvesting of Ginger                                                                                37

Chapter 3        MATERIALS AND METHODS                                                                                                        

3.1 Sample Preparation                                                                                                           40

3.2 Design Considerations of Ginger Harvester                                                                      40 

3.3 Description of Developed Machine (Harvester)                                                                   41

3.4 Soil Properties of Experimental Plot                                                                                 46                                                          

3.5 Design of Component Parts                                                                                               46

3.5.1 Design of Digger                                                                                                            46

3.5.2 Selection of Bolts                                                                                                           51

3.5.3 Selection of three-point Linkage                                                                                    53

3.6 Experimental Procedure                                                                                                    53

3.6.1 Draught requirement                                                                                                      53

3.6.2 Drawbar power                                                                                        54

3.6.3 Performance evaluation                                                                                                  54

3.7 Experimental Design                                                                                                         55

3.7.1 Statistical analysis                                                                                                          55

3.8 Bill of Engineering Measurements                                                                                    57

 

Chapter 4        RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS                                                                   

4.1 Soil Properties                                                                                                                   58

4.2 Draught Force and Power of Ginger Harvester                                                                 58

4.2.1 Effect of draught force on the speed of the Harvester                                                    59

4.3 Mass of Harvested Ginger                                                                                                 61

4.3.1 Effects of speeds, depth of Cuts and rake angles on the mass of harvested Ginger         63

4.4 Field Capacity of Ginger Harvester                                                                                  65

4.4.1 Effects of speeds and rake angle on field capacity                                                        66

4.4.2 Effects of depth of cuts and rake angles on field capacity                                             67

4.4.3 Effects of interaction of speeds and depth of cuts on field capacity                                     68

4.5 Field Efficiency of Ginger Harvester                                                                                69

4.5.1 Effects of the interactions of speeds and depth of cuts on field efficiency                     70

4.5.2 Effects of interactions of depth of cuts and rake angle on field efficiency                     71

4.5.3 Effects of interactions of speeds and rake angle on field efficiency                                        72

4.6 Percentage of Rhizome Bruises                                                                                        73

Chapter 5        CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS                                                                                

5.1       Conclusion                                                                                                                   74

5.2       Recommendations                                                                                                       75

References                                                                                                                               76

Appendices                                                                                                                  81

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LIST OF TABLES

 

2.1: Production of Ginger in Nigeria                                                                          16

2.2: Ginger production by the top ten Country in year 2018                                     17

2.3: Summary of physical properties of Ginger (Zingiber officinale)                   26

2.4: Descriptive statistics for mass of 50 Rhizomes of two Ginger varieties                      27

2.5: Descriptive statistics for volume of 50 Rhizomes of two Ginger varieties          27

2.6: Descriptive statistics for sphericity of 50 Rhizomes of two Ginger varieties          28

2.7: Descriptive statistics for Particle of 50 Rhizomes of two Ginger varieties          28

3.1: Properties of Soil obtained from the Eastern Farmland of MOUAU                     46

3.2: Design dimensions of Screw Threads, Bolts and Nuts                                       52

3.3: Standard dimension of three-point Linkage                                                        53

3.4: An outline of the analysis of variance for split-split plot design                         56

3.5: Bill of engineering measurements                                                                       57

4.1: Draught of the Tractor without Load                                                                  59

4.2: Draught of the Tractor cum Harvester                                                                59

4.3: Draught of the Harvester                                                                                     60

4.4: Mass of undamaged Ginger (g) harvested at a travel distance of 14.6 m         62

            4.5: Harvested time taken when the Tractor covers a distance of 14.6 m                                                63

            4.6: Analysis of variance Table for mass of Ginger harvested                                                                           64

4.7: Field capacity of Ginger Harvester                                                                     66

4.8: Analysis of variance for field capacity                                                               67

4.9: Field efficiency of Ginger Harvester                                                                   70

4.10: Analysis of variance for field efficiency                                                           71

 

 



LIST OF FIGURES

2.1: Hilled young Ginger Plant                                                                                   10

2.2: Ginger flowering Plant                                                                                        11

2.3: Harvested Ginger Roots being washed                                                               12

2.4: Matured Ginger Root                                                                                          14

2.5: Ginger production in Nigeria                                                                              15

2.6:  Ginger Production by the top ten Country in year 2018                                     16

2.7: Flowchart for Ginger processing                                                                         20

2.8: Isometric view of motorized Ginger Rhizome slicing Machine                                  22

2.9: General structure of Gingerols (n= 1, 4, 6, 8, 10) for specific Compounds        23

2.10: The underground Vegetable Harvester                                                             32

2.11: Three dimension view of cassava uprooting device                                         33

2.12: The Sugarcane harvesting Machine                                                                         34

2.13: Combined Harvester                                                                                          34

2.14: NCAM mechanized Cassava Harvester                                                            35

2.15: Manual harvesting (Hand picking holding the Stems/Branches) of Ginger    37

2.16: Spade (A) and digging Fork (B) used for Ginger harvesting                                    37

2.17: Ginger Harvester with Tracks                                                                           38

2.18: Harvesting Machine for Ginger                                                                         39

2.19: Fully assembled Ginger harvesting Machine                                                    40

3.1: Isometric drawing of a row Ginger Harvester                                                     43

3.2: Orthographic projection of a row Ginger Harvester                                           44

3.3: Front view of a row Ginger Harvester                                                                45

3.4: Side view of a row Ginger Harvester                                                                  46

3.5: Free-body diagram of the Digger Blade                                                              50

3.6: Free-body, shear force and bending moment Diagrams                                     51

3.7: Dynamometer                                                                                                      55

3.8: Split-split plot design of some selected field parameters for harvesting Ginger Rhizome                                                                                                                56

4.1: Draught force of the Harvester at constant speed                                               61

4.2: Effects of speeds on the mass of harvested Ginger                                             65

4.3: Surface plot of field capacity verses speed and rake angle                                    67

4.4: Surface plot of field capacity verses depth of cuts and rake angles              68

4.5: Surface plot of field capacity verses speed and depth of cuts                                    69

4.6: Surface plot of field efficiency verses speeds and depth of cuts                              71

4.7: Surface plot of field efficiency verses depth of cuts and rake angle               72

4.8: Surface plot of field efficiency verses speeds and rake angles                                    73

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

 

1.1       BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Harvesting is a method of cutting and collection of mature crops from the field, and a harvester is a machine used for harvesting (Adarsh et al., 2013). Tadesse (2015) defined harvesting as the main technique of bringing together the field's target crop product. It is open to the climate's impulse and the growing environment and places it in controlled processing and a stable storage environment. He further inferred that the harvesting requirements depend on the final product sought, specific needs such as maturity and evenness, and intended use, which dictates the harvesting management and timing at which rhizomes are harvested.

 Harvesting of crops could include combining all processes: Cutting, digging, picking, gathering, transport, and stacking. After average maturity, the harvest occurs to remove grains, straws, tubers, and so on with minimum loss. In traditional harvesting of ginger, diggers, hoes, and spades are used with humans, providing the power to penetrate the soil and uproot the ginger rhizomes.

 Some researchers (Agbetoye (1999), Akinbamowo (2013), and Subramanian et al. (2015)) reported that there are several modern design of harvesters utilized for reaping crops. There are also different harvesting principles of operation employed based on the category of crops to be harvested. These designs were possible to incorporate the following: sickles, hand tools, and reapers are utilized for grain crops while diggers are primarily used for underground crops (like turmeric, ginger, yam, cassava); these harvesters machine could be operated with various sources of power (Subramanian et al., 2015). Nevertheless, both tractor-mounted and self-propelled harvesters are mostly used to harvest other grain crops. It integrates into a single operation process that previously required three separate operations – reaping, threshing, and winnowing. Amongst the crops reaped with a combine harvester include oats, rye, maize, barley, corn, soya beans, wheat and flax (Akinwunmi, 2013).

Agbetoye et al. (2011) and Akinbamowo (2013) reported that plough was the earliest attempt to mechanize tropical root crops' harvesting. The main mechanism is an oxen-drawn digger or a tractor coupled with a share and rising fingers. Sometimes sifting fingers are connected at the rear of the rising fingers for adequate sorting. One of the earliest known harvester is the potato spinner, which consist of a flat share fixed horizontally to a tractor to plough the earth and hoist the root crops. The hoist material is further transferred into a rapidly rotating tine series on a hub that is either by land wheel driven or PTO. The tines break the soil and detach the crop.

Younus and Jayan (2015) described the manually operated IITA cassava lifter as another early harvester consisting of a lever and fixed gripping jaw are mounted to the frame for uprooting cassava roots.

 Numerous harvesting techniques have been initiated to harvest similar crops like cassava, potatoes, cocoyam, and turmeric using mechanical diggers. Also, an effort has been made to design a ginger harvester using blades (diggers) powered by an electric motor (Sanjay et al., 2015).  


1.2       STATEMENT OF PROBLEM

Most manual harvesting operations are done with rudimentary equipment like cutlasses, hoes, and diggers. These harvesting methods are slow, leading to drudgery, leaving a considerable amount of the tubers either remaining in the ground or damaged (Agbetoye, 1999). Manual ginger harvesting is tedious, risky, energy-sapping, and time-consuming, resulting in the loss of ginger rhizomes and a low production rate (Sanjay et al., 2015).

According to Younus and Jayan (2015), manual harvesting of cassava requires about 22-62 man-hour per hectare. Padmanathan et al. (2006) emphasized that the practice of traditional threshing and harvesting of groundnut consumes a considerable amount of labour to the magnitude of 84 man-hours per hectare.

Igbo et al. (2016) opined that ginger production mechanization had received little attention in Nigeria. Only a small number of farmers use mechanized farm machines for field preparation involving ploughing, harrowing, and ridging. The majority of ginger cultivators are peasant and small scale farmers and they prepare their fields using conventional approach. Most farm operations in Nigeria like planting, mulching, fertilizer application, weeding as well as harvesting are usually accomplished traditionally. They further syllogized that the low level of ginger rhizome harvests results from inadequate adaptable farm mechanization technologies and management practices in Nigeria.  

By hand forks or with diggers, farmers' traditional harvesting method employed to deracinate ginger is among the primary root causes of ginger's low production. Notwithstanding the technological breakthrough in the development and fabrication of harvesters, for example, carrot harvester, groundnut harvester, cassava harvester, cocoyam harvester, yam harvester, etc., little has been done for the ginger harvester. There is no ginger harvester in Nigeria, but an engine-driven ginger harvester has been designed in India by Sanjay et al. (2015).

Therefore, the problems facing this study include the following:

(i)    Non-availability of locally designed or fabricated machine for harvesting ginger.

(ii)   Low production rate, occasioned by manual harvesting.

(iii)   Harvesting constitutes a significant impediment because of the energy expended and time spent in uprooting the ginger rhizomes.

(iv)  Harvesting exposes individuals to high risks and hazards.

In this project, a typical ginger harvesting machine will be designed, developed, and evaluated in such a manner that it will be capable of efficiently harvesting all ginger rhizomes.  


1.3         OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

 

1.3.1      General objective of the study

The general objective of the study is to develop a single-row tractor-drawn ginger rhizome harvester.


1.3.2      Specific objectives of the study

The specific objectives of the study are to:

(i)     design a tractor-drawn ginger rhizome harvester

(ii)   fabricate a tractor-drawn ginger rhizome harvester

(iii)                    determine the draught requirement for operating the developed harvester as affected by  soil moisture and angle of inclination of the digger and

(iv)   evaluate the performance of the developed tractor-drawn ginger rhizome harvester in terms of effective field capacity, field efficiency, and percentage rhizome damage.


1.4   JUSTIFICATION OF THE STUDY

Harvesting constitutes a major operation among agricultural activities. It is considered for a long time as the last step in production; instead, it must be approached as the first one in the postproduction system. The techniques for harvesting crops differ based on the type of plant to be harvested. Cereal crops are first cut either as a whole or partially (ears) and then threshed and cleaned to separate the grain from the ears and straw, but for forage crops the whole plant is entirely cut. Root and tuber crops are quite different because the crop is uprooted while the soil sticking to it is removed. Odigboh (2006) enumerated the most severe bottleneck in agricultural mechanization: planting, weeding, harvesting, and peeling. Therefore, it is pertinent to develop mechanized equipment that tackles the challenges encountered during ginger's harvesting.

 A ginger harvesting machine will be developed to overcome the drudgery, time-wasting, and low productivity associated with the manual harvesting method. The ginger harvester's design and operation's simplicity will improve the quantity and quality of harvested ginger rhizomes, thus increasing ginger rhizomes' yield in the country.


1.5   SCOPE OF THE WORK                                           

This study's scope encompasses the design, development, and evaluation of ginger harvester, which is tractor drawn, and the rhizomes are manually collected.

 

 

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