Potato Harvester Successfully Developed, Mechanized Harvesting Realized

On July 17, at the provincial potato mechanized planting and harvesting on-site demonstration meeting held in Xiazhaizhai Village, Nianbo Town, Ledu County, Qinghai Province, it was observed that a single-operator potato harvester produced and developed by a provincial private enterprise completed the potato harvest of a 8-fen plot in less than 40 minutes, equivalent to a whole day's workload of 10 laborers, while the machine's @#@136@#@ price was less than 1500 yuan.

The staff of the Qinghai Provincial Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Machinery Extension Station distributed and promoted 40 such potato harvesters with an operating efficiency of 1.2 mu per hour to 20 grassroots stations on site, and simultaneously announced a 30% financial subsidy for farmers purchasing potato planters and harvesters, which means farmers in Qinghai Province's main potato-producing areas are expected to escape the heavy, low-efficiency labor of potato planting and harvesting, and further expand the planting area of potatoes, a distinctive advantageous crop of Qinghai Province.

After several years of adjustment of the planting industry structure, potato cultivation has become a major distinctive advantageous crop of Qinghai Province. At present, a commercial potato production belt of over a million mu has been formed in the shallow mountain areas along the banks of the Huangshui, Datong River and Yellow River. However, due to the high labor intensity and low efficiency of potato planting and harvesting, this has become the main restricting factor for the further expansion of commercial potato planting scale. The provincial private enterprise Ledu County Guangming Agricultural Machinery Manufacturing Co., Ltd., after years of experimentation and improvement, has developed the 2BFM-1 type potato planter and the 4UM-1 type potato harvester, which have become increasingly mature. In March this year, 60 potato harvesters were already sold to Guizhou Province.