PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF TROPICAL AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

Digging or pulling groundnuts from the ground is a laborious and time consuming hand operation. The use oj a mechanical digger will reduce the labour requirement and minimise the drudgery. I his paper describes the development and fabrication of a prototype groundnut diggerlifter based on a potato digging machine. The design consists of two digging blades which penetrate under the plant row to loosen the soil and cut the tap root. There are lifting rods on the blades which help lift the plants from the soil and elevate them to the conveyor. The conveyor performs the tasks of separating, shaking and elevating the plants to a discharge unit. The conveyor is powered from the tractor PI O. I he power is transmitted to the conveyor shaft through a chain sprocket transmission system. From preliminary tests carried out, at a speed of 0.9km/hr, the machine has o working capacity of 0. 5ha/hr with an efficiency of 63%. The estimated output per hectare is 126kg of peanuts.