Development of Self Propelled Single Row Maize Harvester

Abstract

In India, maize is the third most important crops after rice and wheat and has enough potential to double the farmers income. The cob picking and stalk cutting are the most tedious operations done manually and require labour. The usage of maize combines in the country is limited due to the economical background of the farmers. In order to eliminate the labour shortage, an attempt was made to develop a single row self-propelled maize harvester which can perform two operations i.e., cob picking and stalk cutting simultaneously and is suitable for small and marginal scale farmers. The harvester was developed taking into consideration the physical properties of maize stalk and maize cob. The important components of the developed harvester are snapping rollers, cutting blade, guiding star wheel, harvesting gear box, handle and pneumatic wheels. A 5.2 kW engine was selected for power requirement of the developed harvester. When the harvester is set for working, the snapping rollers which rotate in opposite direction snaps off the cob from the maize stalks and the stalks are cut by circular cutting blade and laid on the ground. newline