ABSTRACT

A power tiller operated potato harvester was developed in Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) for harvesting of potato at smallholder farmers’ level. But their adoption of potato harvester is slow due to some technical problems of the machines, lack of awareness, operation skill and availability of the machines in farm level. So, attempts were undertaken to solve the technical problems of the potato harvester. The experiments were conducted in the farmers’ fields in Gazipur, Bogura and Jashore districts. Field trials were carried out to identify the specific problems and improved the potato harvester. Effective field capacity and efficiency of the potato harvester were ranged from 0.101 to 0.117 ha/h and 72.66 to 81.25%, respectively at farmer’s fields. Tuber damage was minimum (1%) in mechanical harvesting. Significant amount (10%) of potato remains in manual harvesting system which could be minimized in mechanized potato harvesting. Potato harvester saved 56% labour requirement, 48% cost and 55% time saving compared to manual potato harvesting method. The BCR and payback period of the potato harvester was 2.0 and 1.35 years respectively. BARI potato harvester is recommended for harvesting potato at smallholder farmers level in Bangladesh.