International Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 2021, 8(2): 37-43 ISSN: 2313-4461 & 2617-6637 How to cite this article: Roy T, Amin MR, Sarker MKU, Tapu FA and Huda MN (2021). Design, fabrication and performance evaluation of a simple mango harvester. International Journal of Natural and Social Sciences, 8(2): 37-43. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4944393 Design, fabrication and performance evaluation of a simple mango harvester Trishna Roy, Md. Ruhul Amin, Md. Kamal Uddin Sarker*, Farha Anjum Tapu, Md. Nazmul Huda Department of Agricultural and Industrial Engineering, Hajee Mohammad Danesh Science and Technology University, Dinajpur-5200, Bangladesh ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Article history Received: 27 April 2021 Accepted: 30 May 2021 Harvesting is one of the most important agricultural and horticultural operations. In Bangladesh, mango harvesting is done traditionally by shaking, plucking with bamboo, picking by hand, by climbing on the tree and from the ground using bamboo stick. The traditional manual harvesting is very labor intensive and thus expensive. There are some risk factors such as the mango could be physically damaged when fall to the ground, sometimes it may fall on the people under the tree and cause accidents. Sometimes people fall from the tree on the ground and cause accidents and even die. This work concerns the development a simple manually operated mango harvester. Two different prototypes of the harvester was designed and manufactured. One is telescopic using different diameter stainless steel pipe and another fixed height using aluminum pipe. The harvester consists of cutting tool, spring, clutch wire, clutch, wheel, pipe and collecting net. The main mechanism used in this concept was simple braking mechanism for cutting operation by using share force of cutting part. The capacity of first prototype (telescopic) and second prototype (second height) was 37.77 kg hr -1 and 40.95 kg hr -1 respectively. The percentage of damaged mango was lower than the manual method. The machine fabrication cost is affordable to the farmers and the harvesting cost of first prototype (telescopic) and second prototype (second height) was same US$ 0.01 kg -1 . The simple mango harvester would be an easy solution for mango harvesting. Keywords Design, Fabrication, Mango harvester, Capacity, Harvesting cost *Corresponding Author Md. Kamal Uddin Sarker mkusarker2002@yahoo.co.uk INTRODUCTION Bangladesh ranks first in per hector fruit production in the World. A total of 70 different fruits are being produced in the country while mango is the second largest producing fruits in the country while banana tops the list (The Daily Industry, May 10, 2020). Mango production was 2.37 million metric tonnes in FY 2017-18; it was 2.2 million metric tonnes in FY 2018-19 (BBS, 2019). Bangladesh occupied the 8 th place as a mango producing country around the world (The Daily Star, June 26, 2020). The plucking of the most juicy summer fruit mango is start in the middle of May with its Guti varieties in northern region and other improved varieties in Sathkharia and hill tracts. Harvesting is one of the most important agricultural and horticultural operations. The traditional manual harvesting is very labor intensive and thus expensive. Although Hill et al. (1981) found that mechanical harvesting was not always cheaper than hand harvesting. Therefore, spending money to improve the harvesting operation leads to the quantitative and qualitative growth in yield and income. Since the cost of harvesting represents 35–45% of total operating cost, there is potential for a significant reduction in total fruit production costs through the improvement in the efficiency of this operation (Sanders, 2005). Mangoes are generally harvested at physiologically mature stage and ripened for optimum quality. Fruits are hand-picked or plucked by bamboo poles. It is a tedious task. During harvesting, the latex trickles down the fruit surface from the point of detachment imparting a shabby appearance to it upon storage. Sometimes latex fall on the face and causes scars. Therefore,