Design and development of a semi-automatic grafting machine for cocoa

Cocoa is one of the agricultural export commodities that contributes to the main income of small farmers in Indonesia. The production was 720,661 tons in 2020, the third largest cocoa production after Ivory Coast and Ghana. One of the key successes of cocoa production is the availability of good-quality seedlings. Saddle or slot grafting is considered one of the best methods for seedling propagation of cocoa. Traditional manual cocoa grafting using a grafting knife and scissors is commonly practiced in Indonesia, although it is labor-intensive and low in production efficiency. Research on vegetable grafting machines has been carried out in developed countries, however, very view of research conducted on grafting machines for cocoa. A simple semi-automatic cocoa grafting machine has been designed and developed in ICAERD in 2020. The machine consists of a cutting and binding device and a control system. The cutting device cut rootstock and scion with V shape knife made from hardened stainless steel of 59 HRC, 7° sharpness angle, and 50° cutting angle to maximize the contact surface area of the cut. The binding device binds the joint using ultra film to make the best fit of the surface area of cuts and the bond slot graft becomes more rigid. The machine has been tested for grafting seedlings. The test result showed that the capacity of the machine was 120 grafted seeds per hour, resulting in a clean cut of rootstock and scion, and 90% of the cocoa grafted seed grows well.