Design and construction of cassava stake cutting machine.

Abstract

Cassava is one of the most important food crops grown in various parts of Uganda; - Several varieties of cassava are mostly grown due to tolerance in both poor soils and unreliable weather conditions. Cassava is a propagated plant with its stems being the leading source of planting material which affects the yields and results in low productivity depending on the method of preparation, Quality of stem and the time it’s needed. The common method used for cutting is manual labor using a panga, machetes among a few which is labor intensive, time consuming and leads to drudgery that leads to unequal and bruised nodes on stakes which lower the stake viability which intern leads to low productivity.

This project undertook the development of a motorized cassava stake cutter with the aim of reducing on the drudgery during cutting operations and increasing the timeliness production of quality stakes. The main objective of the project was to design and construct a cassava stake cutter which will meet the production of the required stakes for mechanized and commercial farming per day. In achieving the above objective, basic engineering principles and the physical properties of cassava stems were considered in the design of the various components of the stake cutter. Appropriate engineering drawings were produced using solid edge and the designed stake cutter was constructed at Munyegera Workshop using the locally available materials (mainly mild steel) and common production technologies, including cutting, bending, welding, etc.

The performance of the constructed prototype was determined by the no of stems produced and there quality in terms of length bruised nodes etc. From the tests performed, it was found that the machine output capacity was 7500 stakes per hr., with up to 75% of the machine efficiency and 72% of the cutting efficiency. Thus the use of the machine has a big role in reducing drudgery and making farming attractive; thereby improving crop production and alleviating the labor shortages experienced during cutting. This increases the income and stem availability of poor resource farmers in Uganda.