STUDY ON EFFECT OF STEM DIAMETER, MOISTURE CONTENT AND AGE OF HENNA PLANT ON CUTTING FORCE

A.K. SINGH¹, H.L. KUSHWAHA²*, H. SINGH³, S. POONIA^4
1ICAR-Central Arid Zone and Research institute, Jodhpur, 342 003, India
²ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, 110012, India
³ICAR-Central Arid Zone and Research institute, Jodhpur, 342 003, India
⁴ICAR-Central Arid Zone and Research institute, Jodhpur, 342 003, India
* Corresponding Author : hlkushwaha@gmail.com

Received : 27-09-2019     Accepted : 12-12-2019     Published : 15-12-2019
Volume : 11     Issue : 23       Pages : 9238 - 9241
Int J Agr Sci 11.23 (2019):9238-9241

Keywords : Henna crop, Henna harvesting machine/device, Cutting force of henna stem, Age of henna plant, Cutting force relationship for henna
Academic Editor : Rajib Das, Gajendra Rana, Kannan C. S. Warrier, Dr Nitin R. Patel, Arlindo Almeida, Satbhai R D, Sri Anees K, Dr Jai Pal Sharma
Conflict of Interest : None declared
Acknowledgements/Funding : Authors are thankful to the Director, ICAR-Central Arid Zone and Research Institute, Jodhpur, 342 003, Rajasthan, India for providing the fund for the project
Author Contribution : All authors equally contributed

Henna (Lawsonia inermis), is cultivated in Western Rajasthan (Arid Zone). The cultivation of henna is very intensive in and around Sojat and Marwar Junction Tehsils of Pali district (average annual rainfall > 400 mm /yr.). The cultivation of henna is spread over about 32000 ha area, which fetches more than 400 million Indian Rupees of revenue every year. On maturity, the stem of henna is very woody and harvesting is performed with a sharp edge curved heavy sickle. This operation involves a lot of human drudgery with a poor efficiency. To design and develop a harvesting machine/device for henna, it is imperative to study the effect of different parameters, viz. stem diameter, age of henna plant and moisture content of the stem’s woody material on cutting force. The paper deals with interactive as well as component relationships between the cutting force, stem diameter, moisture content and age of the henna plant. The data could be fitted in a multi linear relationship between age, moisture content, stem diameter and cutting force. The model is validated well as the slope of the plot between the observed and predicted values of the cutting force is close to unity (i.e. 0.97).

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