Design and performance of mini tractor-operated onion detopping and harvesting unit

Onion (Allium cepa var. Aggregatum) is a widely cultivated crop in Tamil Nadu, India, for domestic and export purposes. It is used as an essential ingredient in all food preparations. Onion, as an indispensable vegetable, the demand for its bulbs has remained relatively consistent irrespective of wide fluctuations in the market prices. Manual onion harvesting is a tiresome, time-consuming, labour- and cost-intensive operation that necessitates mechanized harvesting. Mechanization, which is adopted presently in onion harvesting, is a traditional practice performed with a hand shovel (khurpa). This process alone consumes 21.4 % of the total cost of onion cultivation. Developing a power-operated detopper that can detop the onions after uprooting the onion leaves is essential. Hence, a research study has been taken up for the "Development and evaluation of mini tractor operated onion harvester with detopping unit" to perform both detopping and harvesting simultaneously. The onion harvester attached to the detopping unit was evaluated for harvesting CO (On)5 variety at farmers fields. The performance of the developed prototype onion harvester and detopping unit was evaluated for detopping and harvesting of onion crops in the farmer's field at Nahar village and cost economics was worked out. The cost of the onion harvester, along with the detopping unit, was Rs. 22300. The adequate field capacity of the onion harvester with a detopping unit was found to be 0.052 ha/h. The cost of harvesting and detopping with an onion harvester was 8337 Rs./ha. The savings in cost and time were 81.4 and 92.2 %, respectively. The onion harvester's break-even point (BEP) with the detopping unit was found to be 25.12 h per annum and the payback period was determined to be 1 year and 5 days.