Browsing by Author "Alubokin, Anthony Akurugo"

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    Design, construction and evaluation of a tractor-mounted groundnut harvester
    (JUNE 2016 ) Alubokin, Anthony Akurugo
    Groundnut harvesting is a laborious operation especially on large-scale farms when the soil is dry and hard. Under such conditions, high losses ensue during harvesting because of inappropriate groundnut harvesting implements. The study sort to address this problem by designing a two row fully mounted groundnut harvester. Locally available materials were used for the construction of a tractor-mounted groundnut harvester. Four alternative designs were proposed and analysed based on the set criteria (safety, ease of fabrication, cost and ease of servicing) and the best among the designs was selected. The design was evaluated comparing the vine and pod yield, percentage pod loss, damaged pods and 1000-seed weight with four other harvesting methods (hand hoe, hand fork, hand pulling and cutlass). The experiment was carried out using a randomized complete block design comprising three blocks and five treatments. Results were analysed using analysis of variance at 95% confidence level. The tractor-mounted harvester recorded a vine and pod yield of 1833 kg/ha and a total percentage pod yield loss of 25.64% constituting 0.19% and 25.45% damaged and detached pod losses respectively compared with the hand hoe, cutlass, hand pulling and hand fork methods of harvesting. Groundnuts harvested with the tractor-mounted harvester recorded an average 1000-seed weight of 360 g second to hand fork harvesting with 394 g seed weight. Owing to the high losses of the harvester, it is recommended that the tractor-mounted harvester be modified to optimise and improve performance.