Ecology, Environment and Conservation Paper

FARM STUDY OF HARVESTER MACHINERY PERFORMANCE IN RICE HARVESTING OPERATION AND COMPARISON WITH TRADITIONAL METHOD

Vahedi, Adel and Esmaeil Yasari andGhasempour Alamdari, Majid

Abstract

Rice harvesting in traditional methods done by flax and labor power.This method requires long harvesting period and causes some damages furthermore it expensive.To investigate and to compare traditional and mechanized methods, the present study has been performed based on a randomized complete block design with three treatments including: (I) manual (traditional) harvesting method, (2) reaper, (3) power tiller-integrated harvester (PT1H) in six replications. In this study the effective field capacity, rate of grain damage in cutting stage, gathering, total damages and harvesting costs have been investigated and compared. Results obtained showed that effective field capacity of reaper and power tiller-integrated harvester were 0.244 and 0.238 hectare per hour, respectively.The results also revealed that the total harvesting losses (including cutting and gathering losses) examined in three methods of manual (traditional) harvesting, reaper and power tiller-integrated harvester showed to be: 2.09%, 2.35% and 3.23%, respectively.Total required workers in traditional method was 166.7 person hour per hectare, whereas in reaper and power tiller-integrated harvester were 58.1 and 61.4, respectively. Harvesting costs in hectare of rice farms in traditional method was calculated to be USD 115.7 (Rials 1041875), in reaper was USD 53.4 (Rials 481133) where by power tiller-integrated harvester on tiller was examined to be USD 53.8 (Rials 483462).