Development and Evaluation of E-Brush Cutter for Harvesting of Pigeon Pea Crop

Aims: To develop a battery-operated variable speed electric brush cutter (E-brush cutter) for Indian farmers with small size landholdings to reduce the fuel consumption and ultimately the cost of cultivation.

Place and Duration of Study: ICAR-Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture, Hyderabad 500 059, India.

Methodology: The e-brush cutter, which is developed, consists of one rotary blade as cutting unit, gearhead, DC motor, drive shaft, shoulder belt, handle assembly, motor controller and battery pack. The performance of e-brush cutter was evaluated for its power requirement at control and variable field conditions. The parameters like different plant stem diameter ranges (10-12, 17-19 and 24-26 mm), three cutting blade speeds (46, 53, 60 m/s) and two-crop moisture contents (47% and 37%) were selected to study the performance of e-brush cutter under control field condition. Further, comparative evaluation of both the brush cutters was conducted to find out average effective field capacity, cutting efficiency, grain loss and energy consumption under field conditions.

Results: The average power requirement of e-brush cutter for harvesting pigeon pea changes from 97.22-99.89 W, 134.22-158.11 W and 151.67-184.11 W for the three diameter ranges from 10-12, 17-19 and 24-26 mm as moisture content reduces from 47% to 37%, respectively, irrespective of blade speed. Similarly, net power requirement varies from 21.89-24-56, 58.89-82.78 and 76.33 -108.78 W. Further, the average effective field capacity of 0.034 and 0.037 ha/h, cutting efficiency of 95.66 % and 96.66% and grain loss of 1.47% and 1.55% was observed with engine operated brush cutter and e-brush cutter respectively at modified field condition. The energy consumption of 68.80 MJ/ha was recorded with e- brush cutter, which is 13% of the energy required by the engine operated brush cutter.

Conclusion: The performance evaluation revealed that adoption of electric brush cutter could be technically feasible, energy efficient and eco-friendly.