Motorized tea-leaf shear cutter/harvester to increase the harvesting capacity of individual labour

Abstract

Traditionally, tea harvesting is carried out by human labour; but now tea plantations are facing acute scarcity of labour Hence, in this research study a low-cost, portable and motorized tea-leaf shear-harvester has been developed to induct very preliminary mechanization of tea-leaf harvesting. The implement has been evaluated for its field performance in comparison with hand-plucking and hand-shear-assisted harvesting. The mechanized shear-harvester enhanced the working capacity of individual labour by 2.6 and 1.4 times over that by hand plucking and that with hand-operated shears, respectively. Moreover, it increased field capacity of human labour by 3 and 1.5 times than those of hand-plucking and hand-shear-assisted harvesting, respectively. In short, the new implement presented better working capacity, while maintaining quality of the work. Hence, it is expected that developed device could ease tea harvesting and increase the productivity of the labour