Effect of Roller Speed and Inclination Angle on the Stem Cutting Efficiency of Shallot Onion

Abstract

Shallot or aggregatum onion (Allium cepaL. var. aggregation.) is one of the oldest bulb crops known to mankind and extensively grown and consumed in Southern states of India. They are one among the most important commercial vegetable and spice crops, widely used in the south Indian kitchen mainly for seasoning of curries. Aggregatum onion invariably forms afresh cluster of bulbs, often as many as 10 or 15 per cluster. In India, presently about 35 to 40 percent of the onion is estimated to be lost by post-harvest practices during various operations including handling and storage. Presently after harvest onions are processed by hand labor to remove the leaves and the roots. Hand topping has obvious disadvantages including both cost and length of time necessary to process a large number of onions. However, in recent times it is becoming increasingly difficult to find sufficient skilled labor to do the job. Farmers and processors need a suitable post-harvest machine for stem cutting of shallot onion. Owing to the practical problem in the processing of shallot onion a stem cutting machine for shallot onion was designed and fabricated. The fabricated machine with different parameters like the slope of the machine and different speeds of the rollers were optimized. Different slopes (100, 200, 300) with two roller speeda (500 to 1500 rpm) were studied, results observed showed that at 200 slope and 1000 rpm, the cutting efficiency was very good (100%) with less damage to bulbs (2%).