Planting and Harvesting Mechanization on Productivity, Energy Efficacy and Profitability of Potato Production

Abstract

Potato occupied the first position among all the vegetables in respect of area and total production in Bangladesh. Effective and efficient use of energy are necessary for an improved agricultural production. Therefore, this research was undertaken for potato production to assess productivity, quantify energy flow and financial profitability of different production systems. The experimented four systems were manual planting and manual harvesting, machine planting and manual harvesting, manual planting and machine harvesting and machine planting and machine harvesting, respectively. The experiment was conducted at Farm Machinery and Postharvest Process (FMP) Engineering Division of Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute (BARI) during 2017-18. Yield of potato including yield contributing characters for different treatments was not significantly varied. Direct energy was the highest in mechanical planting and harvesting system (25%) and the lower manual planting and harvesting system (18%). Indirect energy shared 82% in manual planting and harvesting system, 78% in machine planting and manual harvesting system, 80% in manual planting and mechanical harvesting system, and 75% in machine planting and machine harvesting system, respectively. The largest source of indirect energy consumption was from fertilizer (22-27% of the total energy). The higher specific energy of 1.93 MJ/kg was found in manually planted and mechanized harvesting system. The higher product value was from manual planting and mechanical harvesting system. The highest BCR (2.25) was found from machine planted and machine harvested followed by manually planted and mechanically harvested plot (2.16), machine planted and manually harvested plot (1.93) and manual planting and harvesting plot (1.91). Thus, mechanically planted and harvested system can be recommended for potato production since it can reduce 52% labour requirement than manual method and can give higher BCR among the tested production methods.