The challenge of providing a more efficient and
cost-effective ways of harvesting groundnut
amongst the small holder farmers is imperative in
northern Nigeria as a result of intensity of labor
requirement in the task. It is reported that up to 40
% of the total labor required to grow groundnut is
expanded on harvesting operation and at peak
harvest periods, labor shortages often occur
leading to higher costs of production and
subsequent years of reduction in yield due to soil
nutrient loss owing to the uprooting method of
manure harvesting. In order to assuage some of
these challenges, a field test was conducted to
evaluate operation performance of a single row
animal drawn groundnut harvester developed in
the department of Agricultural engineering Bayero
University Kano. The effects of the control
parameters of; variety of the groundnut seed
planted, soil moisture content and cutting depth of
the digger were studied on the performance
parameters of the harvester as; digging efficiency,
percentages of exposed pods loss, unexposed pods
loss, undug pods loss and total of pods loss. The
results obtained revealed a highly significant
difference among the varieties with respect to unexposed
pod loss (%), while moisture content was
found to significantly affect exposed pods loss (%),
total pos loss and digging efficiency. Varying the
cutting depth significantly affected exposed pods
(%), un-exposed pods (%), total pod loss and
digging efficiency. Interaction between SAMNUT
23, moisture content of 12.4%db and cutting depth
of 15 cm had digging efficiency of 97.22%, while
the interactions between SAMNUT 26, moisture
content of 12.4%db and cutting depth of 15 cm had
digging efficiency of 95.14%. The study revealed
that higher digging efficiency is obtainable with
higher soil moisture content and cutting depth,
irrespective of the variety under cultivation, while
correlation analysis revealed that digging
efficiency and total percentage of pod loss are
inversely related, signifying that at lower digging
efficiency there would be higher pod loss and vice
versa
