Fruit crops play an important role in agriculture. The conventional methods of fruit harvesting are crude, laborious and time consuming. Power tillers are visualised as potential source of power for orchards due to their compact size and manoeuvrability in between trees. With a view to simplifying the fruit harvesting operation and to enhance the versatility of power tillers, a power tiller operated ladder was developed. The unit consists of two telescopic box type sections, one sliding inside the other. It is mounted on the power tiller trailer. The power from the power tiller is transmitted to the ladder through a worm gear box, universal joint and tumbler gear mechanism for lifting and lowering the telescopic section. The stability of the unit is 21.80. The unit is evaluated for its performance in plucking fruits from orchard trees. The performance is compared with the manual system and the tractor mounted hoist system. The maximum height of reach is 8.0 m.
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