Utilization of the Two-Wheel Tractor in Onion Digging Operation

Abstract

A front-mounted digger was especially manufactured to be used with the two-wheel tractor for digging onion bulbs, the digger mainly consists of a frame, two detachable shanks and digging blade. Two experiments were carried out in May 2018 at El Gemmieza Agricultural Research Station to evaluate the performance of the developed digger during digging two cultivars of onion namely Giza 20 and Giza red; by testing two types of digging blade namely smooth sharpened edge blade (SSB) and triangular fingered blade (TFB) at three different blade angles of 5ᵒ, 10ᵒ and 15ᵒ. The un-lifted bulbs, damaged bulbs, digging efficiency, onion bulbs storability, required power (kW), consumed energy (kW.h/fed) and total cost were taken into consideration. The results revealed that the TFB caused damaged bulbs ranged between 23.2 – 36.04% and 20.22 – 33.46% with Giza red and Giza 20 respectively; compared to 1.72 – 3.08 % and 1.13 – 2.75 % respectively in case of SSB, so that the TFB cannot be used with the developed digger. The results indicated also that; increasing the blade angle decreased the un-lifted and damaged bulbs; and increased the digging efficiency, onion bulbs storability, required power and consumed energy with the two onion cultivars. The highest digging efficiency for SSB and TFB was obtained at blade angle of 15˚ with the two onion cultivars. The highest total digging cost was 96.6 LE/fed and 107.6 LE/fed for SSB and TFB respectively. Therefore; the developed digger can be used with the two-wheel tractor with SSB at blade angle of 15˚.