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March 14, 2023
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November 30, 2023
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Abstract

Confronted with limited data on cocoa pod opening force and bean separation for optimization, several machines developed have faced challenges over the years. To address this challenge, a mechanical model for the pod opening force assessment was developed and evaluated using Forastero, Amezonia, and Amelonado cocoa cultivars under 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8-day post-harvest delay. Ten Forastero pods were fixed one after the other between two parallel plates on the developed model on the first day of harvest. The pressure shaft was turned through a number of revolutions and the corresponding opening force was recorded using a sensor placed underneath the bottom plate for five pods under longitudinal and lateral orientations and repeated for the other postharvest delays. The process was replicated five times using Amezonia and Amelonado cultivars. Results showed that the opening force decreases with increasing postharvest delay. Terminal opening force for the Forastero >Amezonia >Amelonado. ANOVA showed no significant difference (P ˃ 0.05) between successive postharvest delays for the Forastero, except 4-6 days (P > 0.05) for Amelonado, and 6-8 days (P < 0.05) for Amezonia. Therefore, the maximum postharvest delay for effective pod opening is 4 days for Amelonado, 6 days for Amezonia and 8 days for Forastero. The quantitative assessment of the PLSR model for the Forastero cultivar (R2 = 0.70309; RMSE = 0.01404) is considerably better than the Amezonia cultivar (R2 = 0.68875; RMSE = 0.02134) and Amelonado cultivar (R2 = 0.62312; RMSE = 0.01785). The technique highlighted the cultivar differences and provided excellent quantitative analysis. 

Keywords

Cocoa Pod Mechanical Load Postharvest Delay PLSR Model Pod Orientation

Article Details

Author Biographies

Eric Amoah Asante, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi

 

 

 

Timothy Abeo Apasiba, Faculty of Applied Science and Technology, Tamale Technical University, Tamale, Ghana.

 

 

Emmanuel Y.H Bobobee, Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi

 

 

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