Evaluation of Portable Cotton Picker

Participatory ergonomic evaluation of cotton harvesting in rainfed and irrigated cotton of central India during 2012 found present contract manual harvesting is 30% more efficient than battery powered portable cotton picker. Higher load on contract labourer’s heart was noticed with higher output of seed cotton regardless of methods of harvesting. Portable cotton pickers are high speed, precise and no need of defoliation but adequate training and willingness to adopt the machine is must. Adequately trained female and male pickers can pick 80 and 41% more seed cotton and 44% more cotton area was picked with Portable cotton picker. Portable cotton picker are more suitable for family labour of rainfed cotton harvesting with lower moisture percentage. Higher moisture content in irrigated cotton may be a hindrance for machine picking with frequent slippage. Trash content can be similar to hand harvesting (1-2%). Present Portable cotton picker were frequently trouble shooting with improper cable connections, entry of burs and leaves with obstruction of over grown braches.