Design, Development and Testing of a Tractor Mounted Date Palm Pollination Machine for Sudanese Farms

摘要

Date palms’ pollination is an important stage for date’s production. In Sudan, as in many other date’s producing countries, its pollination is practiced manually, which is not only time consuming but also poses several challenges. The main objective of this research was to design, develop and field test a date pollination machine to facilitate the pollination operation. The pollination machine was fabricated using local materials, in the workshop of the Department of Agricultural Engineering - Faculty of Agriculture, University of Khartoum. The machine consisted of a gearbox and air compressor mounted on a metal frame. It is equipped with pollen tank and metallic pipes to convey the pollen mixture to the date palm tree bloom area. It was mountedon a tractor through its three-point linkage and operated by the tractor PTO shaft. The results of laboratory tests showed that air velocity, flow rate of air inside the pollination tube were, 4 m/s and 0.0003 m~3/s respectively, while pressure loss was559 Pa. The field tests indicated that the pollination machine capacity was 18 tree/h, with pollen application rate of 0.5-1g/tree. The pollination machine cost was 9.1 SDG /tree and it required one operator to pollinate 720 trees per year. The pollination machine reached up to 10 m in height during pollination operation. It can be concluded that the developed pollination machine is effective and efficient in date palms pollination. It is cost effective and can significantly help in saving time and labor.