Studies on designing and development of ergonomic multipurpose mulberry harvesting machine

Praveena Gowda ARV^a*, Muniraju E^b & Murthy ANN^c
aDayananda Sagar College of Engg, Bangalore
^bKSSRDI, Bangalore
^cJSSATE, Bangalore
Received 13th December, 2010; Revised 2nd February, 2011

Abstract : Farming involves high risk of work-related musculoskeletal injury and diseases. Occasionally this risk factor exceeds non-agricultural industries commonly cited as hazardous for musculoskeletal disorders. In addition, un scientific plant pruning and management leads to peeling of bark, pathogen entry and plant death.
In sericulture shoot harvesting and pruning needs intensive labour. It is estimated that around 910 man hours are required for one hectare of mulberry garden per year. Maximum operation time and labour involvement leads to higher cost of production. To reduce human effort and cost of production a prototype ergonomically designed multipurpose mulberry harvesting and pruning machine is designed, developed and evaluated. After testing it has been observed that the developed machine has reduced manpower and correspondingly labour cost by 50%.