Field performance evaluation and economic analysis of an electric cabbage harvester suitable for small farms

To replace the traditional manual cabbage harvesting method commonly practiced by Indian farmers, a self-propelled walk-behind electric cabbage harvester was developed at the Agricultural and Food Engineering Department, IIT Kharagpur. The key concept was to cut the cabbage head from its stem and push the cut cabbage head to a storage unit with the help of a real-time vision-based precise cabbage pushing mechanism. Two counter-rotating disk cutters were used as cutting tools. The performance of the developed harvester was evaluated in a field (20 × 12 m) with three Indian cabbage varieties i.e., Pusa Mukta, Pusa Drumhead and September Early. The developed harvester had a working width of 0.6 m and when operated at a forward speed of 0.25 m/s, the actual field capacity and field efficiency were found to be 0.029 ha/h and 54.86%, respectively. The maximum value of cutting efficiency was found to be 80% for Pusa Mukta variety. The maximum instantaneous power consumption for cutting, pushing, conveying and propelling was found to be 948.53 W. Economic analysis of the developed harvester was carried out and it was found that operational cost was 26.85% lower than traditional harvesting method. The break-even point of the developed cabbage harvester was calculated as 6.43 ha/year.