The Design of a Prototype Lentil Harvester for Small Farms

Although lentil is a valuable source of protein in human diet, and its straw is a highly valued animal feed, its production in West Asia and North Africa is limited, mainly due to problems associated with harvesting. Mechanical harvesting has not been successful because: 1)Seed and leaf shattering occurs when plants are mature; 2) low cutting heights are required since lentils tend to be short (only 20-30 cm tall) with pods borne close to the ground; 3) lentils are usually grown in marginal stony fields where stones cause damage to essential parts of harvesters; and 4) uneven ripening. Hand harvesting cause minimal losses, but it is labor intensive and labor is becoming increasingly scarce.--The objective of this study was to design and test a prototype lentil harvester for small farms with focus on the cutting/feeding mechanism. A hand held preliminary system was first designed and tested and the results were then used to develop a self-propelled prototype, which cuts and collects whole plants without threshing. Very low (5 cm average) and clean cut with negligible seed and leaf losses were achieved under various field conditions (stony, weedy and weeded), wide range of plant moisture (54.7% to 8.7% wet basis) and operation speeds (up to maximum design speed of 4 Km/h). The results were superior to combine and forage harvesters while comparable to--typical hand harvesting (hand pulling). Nevertheless, the ability of the prototype to harvest very dry crop with minimal losses allows farmers to delay harvest until most of the lentils is mature, thus overcoming the the problem of uneven maturity.

--The objective of this study was to design and test a prototype lentil harvester for small farms with focus on the cutting/feeding mechanism.