Arecanut Varieties And Methods Of Cultivation And Harvesting

Abstract

Agriculture is now one of the most importantsectors in the Indian economy. Areca nut cultivation is one ofthe major livelihoods of farmers of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Areca nut cultivation is a long process involving harvesting, separating the fruits from bunches, moving the areca nut toground, drying, de-husking, separating, bagging. Severalmachines are being developed to help farmers to aid theaforementioned processes. Areca nut collecting and baggingmachine is a new one among them.

The machine is intended to collect areca nuts fromground directly to gunny bags fixed in a moveable trolley.

After the bag is filled the trolley can also be used tomove the bags to store rooms. The machine is operated bysingle person so that farmer himself can use it. In addition,since the machine doesn’t use any power units, it can be usedanytime.

Since the machine is manually driven, the machine ismade lightweight materials to reduce the user effort. Themajor enabling mechanism in the machine is an inversion ofslider crank mechanism that pulls the areca nuts fromground. A belt driven Conveyer carries the collected arecanuts up into the bags.