Saving cost and time was a motivation to develop a mechanized harvesting system for chickpeas, which are manually uprooted on fallow fields in developing countries. A tractor-pulled harvester with a modified stripper header was designed and fabricated, in which passive fingers with V-shaped slots removes chickpea pods from anchored plant; batted reel sweeps the pods across the platform. Field experiments were conducted to determine the effect of slot width and reel speed on machine performance in terms of harvesting losses. Minimal losses were found when the design was configured with a slot width of 4 cm, reel speed of 50 rpm and reel kinematic index of 1.6. The prototype harvester with a 1 m working width produced the work rate of 0.18 ha h -1 and exhibited acceptable working quality. The main conclusion is that the modified stripper harvester can work in unevenness ground where other machines cannot operate.Additional key words: Cicer arietinum; losses; mechanized harvesting; performance; stripper header.* Corresponding author: h.golpira@uok.ac.ir Received: 01-08-12. Accepted: 14-11-13.Abbreviations used: D (reel diameter, m); H m (weight of removed pods with the stem, kg); H p (weight of harvested pods on the header, kg); L (total losses, %); L p (weight of remained pods on the plant, kg); L s (weight of shattered pods on the ground, kg); MOG (material other than grain); n (speed of the reel, rpm); v (forward speed, km h -1 ); V (peripheral speed of the reel km h -1 ); λ (reel kinematic index, dimensionless).

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