Vol. 9, Issue 1, Part L (2025)

Konkan region of Maharashtra is one of the largest mango growing belts in the country and Alphonso is highly demanded fruit in the region, which has got lot of export value as well as potential of export. There are several limitations for farm mechanization in Konkan region. Therefore, tractor (above 35 hp) operated machines and related technologies have got very limited scope for farm mechanization in the region. Considering the problems and limitations of Konkan region and farmers feedback, a small tractor operated raising platform was developed for harvesting, spraying and pruning operations. The basic components on machine consists of turntable, hydraulic tank, hydraulic pump, hydraulic motor, lifting arm, hydraulic cylinder, directional control valve, hydraulic oil flow pipeline and harvesting bucket. A small tractor (18.5 hp) was used to lift the platform up to 6 m height. The machine consists of two arms which rotates through 90^o in both clockwise and anticlockwise direction. The developed raising platform was tested for spraying on mango orchard. The spaying was done with motorized knapsack mist blower. The spray droplets deposited on glossy papers were analyzed for determining volume median diameter (VMD), number mean diameter (NMD), uniformity coefficient (UC). The droplet size parameters were determined at six different locations of the tree canopy. From the table, it was found that the average value of volume median diameter (VMD) was 69.36 μm. The average values of number median diameter (NMD) was found to be 82.35 μm, The average value of uniformity coefficient (UC) was found to be 0.85. The maximum number of droplets occupies the size (VMD) in the range of 0-100 μm. In terms of percentage, it is 91.25%, 86.18%, 95.12%, 94.57%, 84.50% and 82.99 at TO, TI, MO, MI, BO and BI respectively. The developed tractor operated raising platform worked satisfactorily for spraying orchard.