DESIGN AND EVALUATION OF SELF PROPELLED REAPER FOR HARVESTING MULTI CROPS

Abstract.

Harvesting of cereal crops is one of the major operations in agriculture production, which requires great attention. The objective of this work was to design of self-propelled reaper, and to evaluate its performance for harvesting of rice, brassica and wheat crops. Fields of rice, wheat and brassica were selected University of Agriculture Faisalabad, Pakistan. Factorial experiments (3 x 3) were conducted at each site with three levels of moisture content i.e.27%, 22% and 19 % for rice, 16.7%, 14.5% and 13% for wheat, and 18.32%, 16.05% and 15.7% for brassica were selected. The levels of machine’s ground speed were1.94, 2.54 and 3.18kmh^-1. Twenty seven plots (1.524 x 3m) were selected randomly in each field to collect data for average percentage (%) slippage, shatter losses and field efficiency. The machine was operated at selected levels of ground speeds and moisture contents for each crop. Factorial analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that the selected levels of ground speed and moisture contents have significant (p=0.05) effect on % slippage and field efficiency and non-significant on shatter losses for rice and wheat crops, whereas significant effect in brassica. Results indicated that in early harvesting at high moisture content, the shatter losses were significantly lower with the higher % slippage. Results reported that the shatter losses, field efficiency and % slippage were influenced by selected levels of ground speed and moisture contents. A suitable combination of ground speed and moisture content can minimize the grain losses and increase the yield and profitability of the farmer’s community.