A Study on Mechanizing Seabuckthorn Fruit Harvestingin Himalayas of India

摘要

Seabuckthorn (Hippophae spp L.) is a unique and valuable hardy bushy shrub that grows mostly wildlyaturally in Himalayan region of Himachal Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Ladakh region ofJammu & Kashmir and in some parts of Sikkim. The plant height varies from 2-4 m having 4-6 branches. Fruits are small drupe (Utricle) and found in bunches in all plants. The plants start bearing fruits at the age of 3-4 years after plantation and yield 2-4 kg/ plant. The pants have tremendous potential for functional food and nutraceutical uses with very high vitamin C and anti-oxidant properties. Harvesting of seabuckthorn fruit is really a tedious and cumbersome. Hence, it is performed manually by beating the branches with stick or cutting the branches from the mother plant on periphery and collecting only 15-20 % of the available fruits of the orchards. Although the fruit is ripe, it is not easily removed from the tree. Estimates of 1500 h/ha for fruit harvesting can be expected. The low output in harvesting was due tosmall size and stickiness of soft fruits, and thorny nature of the bush. In addition, time for harvesting fruits is very less due to early snowfall. There is a need to harvest fruits/berries at full potential by making proper planning and strategies. Insuch circumstances, there is a need to design and develop harvesting tools and devices as well as available harvester in the global market may be introduced with modifications as per the need of our condition. Thus, efforts have been made through this paper for introducing an indigenous manual and mechanical harvester suitable to wild grown plants for increasing capacity and efficiency, which is simple in design, cost effective and has minimum drudgery, to make the harvesting operation easier, simplerand more attractive to the users.