Improved potato diggers in terrace condition of Sikkim in India

Abstract

Potato digging with improved diggers having high effective field capacities and higher digging efficiency was carried out, ensuring total losses within permissible limit. Light weight, single row animal drawn improved digger was developed and evaluated in terraces for harvesting tubers. The performance of the digger was also compared with power tiller mounted digger and traditional digging methods prevailing in the region. Light weight animal drawn potato digger was tested at average speed of 1.72 km/h at 120 mm depth of operation. Digging efficiency and field efficiency were 93% and 88% respectively. Effective field capacity and cost of operation were 0.030 ha/h and Rs 1250/ha. Labour requirement was 34 man-h/ha excluding 150 h for picking of potato after harvest which showed a saving of 38.25% in labour and 60.93% in cost of digging (including picking of potato) over traditional digging by kudal /spade in terraces. Physical damage to dug out tuber was about 1% as compared to 4.6% in power tiller mounted digger and 0.8% in manual digging. Effective field capacity of power tiller mounted potato digger of 300 mm size was 0.055 ha/h and its field efficiency and digging efficiency were 82% and 89.8% respectively. The cost of operation with improved digger was Rs 1250/ha as compared to Rs 3200/ha by manual method and Rs 1875/ha using power tiller mounted digger.