Design, fabrication and evaluation of a short-legged chickpea harvest machine

Currently, chickpea harvest is carried out manually. Therefore, in this study a chickpea harvest machine was designed, fabricated and evaluated. The header of this machine has bush stripping fingers and pods separate from the bushes by standing in between the fingers. Fingers’ angle, Fingers’ length, distance of the fingers from each other, forces applied to the fingers, cleaning cogs and the suction system were from the most important design parameters. Farm evaluations were carried out in four different speeds: 2.5, 3.5, 4.5, 5.5 Km/hr and the amount of loss related to remained pods on the bushes (Pd) and losses related to spilled pods on the ground (Pr) were measured. Results showed that, with increasing forward speed, the amount of both types of losses, at first decreased and then increased. The minimum amount of Pd losses and Pr losses were 1.58% and 2.71% respectively which were obtained in the forward speed of 4.5 km/hr. Also, field evaluations have proven that this machine can perform harvest operations with a minimum forward speed of 1.5 times and a maximum of 2.04 times compared to previous gleaning mechanisms and with a permissible loss of less than 5%.