Design and development of conveying system for wheel mounted Alfalfa Harvester

Alfalfa is a high-yielding, protein-rich forage crop grown on 22 million hectares globally, with India contributing one million hectares. Traditional manual harvesting of alfalfa is labour-intensive, prompting the adoption of mechanized solutions like shoulder-mountedand wheel-mounted brush cutters. However, these systems face challenges related to operator discomfort and inefficient material conveying. To address these issues, a wheelmounted alfalfa harvester with improved conveying systems, S-shaped rotor and rod-typerotor were developed and evaluated. Both the rotors evaluated at a constant operating speed of 1.18 km.h-1 and two independent parameters as blade speed of 3500, 4200 and 4900 RPM and rotor speed of 45 and 65 RPM. The rod-type rotor, featuring three steelrods of varying lengths, demonstrated superior performance over the S-shaped rotor. Field tests at an operating speed of 1.18 km/h showed that with a blade speed of 4900 RPM and rotor speed of 65 RPM, the rod-type rotor achieved the best results: effective field capacity of 128.75 m².h-1, field efficiency of 66.02%, cutting efficiency of 76.88%, conveying efficiency of 64.9%, and fuel consumption of 71.32 lit.ha-1. The rod-type rotor minimized clogging and improved material discharge, making it an efficient solution for mechanized alfalfa harvesting.