Studies on the Development of a Tea Harvesting Machine

A " plucking rolls device" was developed in this study to improve the quality of harvested tea leaves. In this report, the outline of the system and the results of performance experiments in our laboratory are discussed. Tow kinds of performance experiments were carried out. The first experiment checked harvesting accuracy by using a plucking unit that was developed for harvesting machine installation. The second experiment was a harvesting experiment which utilized a fron bar in order to prevent cutting of the tea buds which had been a problem in precious experiments . As a results of the first experiments , it was confirmed that selective harvesting obtained high quality tea leaves. but a cutting problem that, when the harvesting seed was faster than the working speed, which was non-selective harvesting , was also seen. In the second experiment, the cutting rate decreased to a maximum of 50% level, when tea buds most bent ahead by the front bar. The effect was seen that cutt ng problem was alleviated from this.