ABSTRACT

 A potato grading machine was developed and constructed using locally sourced material so that it will be affordable and effective. Grading as one of the most important, processes in potato production allows for prompt handling before it begins to decay, thus assisting the producer to benefit maximally. Although handpicking is the cheapest form of sorting potatoes, it is however not effective, and most available imported sophisticated grading machines are very expensive; hence, necessitating the development.and fabrication of this, grader. The machine on evaluation has an output of 3380kg/h with an average grading time of I733seconds using an average quantity of 16.07kg of potatoes. The final cost of production of the machine is 85,O00.O0. It is affordable, has low labour requirement, low maintenance cost and very easy to maintain with an overall grading efficiency of 98% and mechanical efficiency of 1 .9%. It is recommended that government at all levels should encourage its production, dissemination and commercialization to make the production of potato easy so as to harness all the benefits of potato grading prior to processing.