Design of tractor front mounted Pigeon pea stem cutter

In this research work was made to investigate the cutting energy and force required for the pigeon pea crops. Commercially available blades, sharpened at 300 were selected for the experiment. It was attached to the lower end of the arm of pendulum type dynamic tester which cut the stalk at 900 to the stalk axis with knife velocity ranging between 2.28 m/s to 7.23 m/s. The blade 300 bevel angle required 141.96 Nm cutting energy and 747.25 N force for 30 mm diameter stem at 42.6 % (wb) moisture content. The study investigated the cutting energy and cutting force were directly proportional to cross-sectional area and moisture content at the time of harvesting of pigeon pea crop. In view of this a tractor operated front mounted pigeon pea stem cutter was design and developed in Department of Farm Machinery and Power, Dr. PDKV, Akola. All the components were designed with standard procedure. The average cutting efficiency and field capacity was found 94.55 % and 0.176 ha/hr respectively. The average operation cost of newly developed tractor operated front mounted pigeon pea stem cutter was 64.71 % less as compared with manual harvesting of pigeon pea crop. The time saved was almost 1/3rd to that of manual harvesting