INTRODUCION Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) is the most important vegetable crop of India covering approximately 1.33 million ha with total production of 23.16 million tonnes (1). Similarly, in north-western plains, sugarcane (Saccharum officianarum L.) is an important cash crop and a major source of raw material for sugar industry. Past work on intercropping of these two crops suggests that potato and sugarcane have synergetic effects (2) in terms of productivity per unit area and time (4), and ultimately on the returns. Though this intercropping was found remunerative long ago in different parts of India, area under this system is still not significant (3). Reasons for not adopting this system on large scale could be: a) non-availability of suitable varieties of these crops for intercropping, b) lack of efficient agronomic and management practices, c) non-availability of suitable machines and equipment for different field operations and, DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF OFFSET TYPE DIGGER FOR SUGARCANE + POTATO INTERCROPPING Sukhwinder Singh, Sanjay Rawal 1 and Manjit Singh 2 ABSTRACT : Potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) and sugarcane (Saccharum officianarum L.) are the most important vegetable and sugar crops in India. Many researchers have concluded that the intercropping of these crops results in increased productivity per unit area and time for both these crops, hence results in better returns. However, potato harvesting in intercropping is a cumbersome process and requires a lot of manual labour which uses hand tools like khurpa. This results in significant quantity of cut and bruised potatoes. Therefore, an offset type digger for sugarcane+potato intercropping (SPIC) was developed and tested in field conditions for mechanizing digging operation. This equipment, besides being useful for potato digging, performs inter-row cultivation of sugarcane crop. Power requirement of this digger was found to be 35 hp with field capacity of 0.25 ha/ h. Manpower requirement was found 60% lower as compared to manual digging, whereas tuber damage was less than 2%. There was no damage to sugarcane crop except occasional trampling. d) lack of promotional and extension programmes. The Central Potato Research Institute has developed many useful machines and tools for potato production (5), and some other research organizations like National Sugarcane Research Institute, Punjab Agricultural University and Central Institute of Agricultural Engineering have developed equipments for sugarcane. But no effort has ever been made to develop machines and equipments for intercropping of potato and sugarcane. An effort has been made to develop an offset type digger for this intercropping system (SPIC). MATERIALS AND METHODS Design The considerations for designing this digging equipment are: a) It should be tractor operated, mounted type and fabricated from easily available materials having minimum field capacity of 1.5 ha/day, 1 Central Potato Research Institute Campus, Modipuram, Meerut-250 110, Uttar Pradesh, India. 2 Central Potato Research Station, Jalandhar-144 003, Punjab, India. Potato J. 34 (3 - 4): 227-230, 2007