Physical and Mechanical Properties of Tissue Culture Banana Plantlets for the Design of Planting Mechanism

Aims: To design a mechanical transplanting mechanism for tissue culture banana plantlets, physical and mechanical properties such as mass, height of plantlet, pseudostem height from tray to first leaf, pseudostem diameter between root plug and first leaf, root plug dimension, moisture content of root plug, pulling force and compression resistance are needed.

Place and Duration of Study: Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, AEC&RI, Kumulur, Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, AEC&RI, Coimbatore and Post-Harvest Technology Centre, Coimbatore between August 2019 to December 2019.

Methodology: For three local varieties used by the farmers to culivate tissue culture banana namely ‘Grand Naine-G9’ (AAA), ‘Red Banana’ (AAA) and ‘Nendran’ (BAA), physical and mechanical properties were studied.

Results: ‘G9’, ‘Red Banana’ and ‘Nendran’ were 120.5±12.3, 117.2± 9.0 and 113.5±9.0 g mass and 379.3±21.72, 360±26.23, 467.6±13.06 mm height, pseudostem diameter near root plug was observed as 10.7 ± 1.0, 10.2 ± 0.8 and 10.9 ± 1.4 mm respectively. The height of pseudostem till the first leaf was minimum for ‘Red’ variety (37.1±4.3 mm), maximum for ‘Nendran’ (102.1±2.3 mm). The pulling force for three varieties were observed as 4.96±2, 4.97±1.1 and 5.05±1.6 N with little difference in-between them. The minimum compressive resistance offered by the three varieties are 47.16 ± 3.08, 46.42 ± 5.43 and 38.55 ± 1.86 N near the base and 44.07 ± 2.55, 37.89 ± 6.6 and 32.36 ± 1.58 N at 25 mm above root plug for ‘G9’, ‘Red’ and ‘Nendran’ respectively.

Conclusion: The maximum plantlet weight was observed as 132.8 mm for ‘G9’ variety and plantlet height as 480 mm for ‘Nendran’ variety. The minimum height of pseudostem till the first leaf was 31 mm for ‘Red’ variety and picking gripper height should be less than 30 mm. The minimum pulling force should be 7 N to remove the plantlet from the pro-tray and force applied by the gripper to hold the plantlet on pseudostem shouldn’t exceed 30 N.