Mechanical Harvesting of Coffee in High Slope

Abstract

-Brazilian coffee farming is carried out both on flat and steep lands. In flat areas, mechanized operations are intensive; however, in steep slope areas, certain mechanized operations cannot be performed, such as harvesting. Based on this, the industry has developed machinery to harvest coffee in areas with up to 30% slope. However, harvesters have their efficiency and operational performance influenced by land slope. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate the operational performance and harvesting efficiency of a steep-slope harvester under different situations, using different speed settings. The experiment was carried out in the county of Santo Antônio do Amparo, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, using five coffee stands with 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% slope. Evaluations were performed with a self-propelled harvester (Electron, TDI®, Araguari, MG, Brazil) at three rotation speeds (600, 800 and 1.000 rpm) and two ground speeds (800 and 1.000 m h -1 ). The results showed the lower speed (800 m h -1 ) was suitable for 10% slope areas since the amount of fallen coffee berries. For areas of 20% slope, harvesting time was 21.6% longer than in flatter areas. Downtime varied from 10.66 to 29.18% total harvest due to a higher number of maneuvers.Keywords: Modified harvesters. Steep-sloping relief. Mechanization. COLHEITA MECANIZADA DO CAFÉ EM ELEVADAS DECLIVIDADESRESUMO -A cafeicultura brasileira está presente em áreas planas e declivosas. Nas regiões planas a mecanização nas operações cafeeiras é intensa, do contrário, são as regiões declivosas, que não mecanizam algumas das operações, dentre elas a colheita. Para suplantar esta dificuldade a indústria vem desenvolvendo colhedoras capazes de colher em declividades de até 30%. O desempenho operacional e a eficiência de colheita são influenciadas pela declividade. Diante disto objetivou-se no presente trabalho avaliar o desempenho operacional e a eficiência de colheita de uma colhedora confeccionada para colher em elevadas declividades, testando suas principais regulagens. O experimento foi conduzido no município de Santo Antônio do Amparo, região do Sul de Minas Gerais, em cinco talhões com declividade de 10, 15, 20, 25 e 30%, utilizando uma colhedora Electron automotriz (TDI), testando três vibrações das hastes (600, 800 e 1.000 rpm) e duas velocidades (800 e 1.000 m h -1 ). Obteve-se que em na declividade de 10%, deve-se utilizar velocidades reduzidas (800 m h -1 ) para minimizar a quantidade de café caído. Em declividades acima de 20% a colheita mecanizada demanda 21,6% a mais de tempo para ser procedida que em declividades menores. O tempo de parada na operação da colheita mecanizada corresponde a 10,66 a 29,18% do tempo total de colheita, em função do maior número de manobras.Palavras-chave: Colhedoras adaptadas. Relevo montanhoso. Mecanização.

Comparative performance of commonly used portable coffee harvesters

“…In Brazil, the substitution of manual harvesting by mechanized alternatives has become evident and extensive in the last 30 years (Matiello et al, 2015). Nevertheless, it is impossible to use harvesters (trawlers or self-propelled), in some large areas with slopes, similar to what happens in other producing countries from Central America like Colombia (Cárdenas et al, 2015;Santinato et al, 2016a;Tavares et al, 2016). In addition to that, coffee harvesters (trawlers or self-propelled) are complex machines (Silva et al, 2018) with high cost and components often subjected to vibrations (Souza et al, 2018), increasing maintenance costs.…”

“…Plant damage is one of the drawbacks of semimechanized harvesting (using manual harvesters), especially for young plants (Barros et al, 1995); however, there is controversy regarding the use of portable harvesters, and there are still controversies, lacking this data. Santinato et al (2016a) reported a substantial reduction in plant damage via the use of flexible extenders at the tip of coffee harvesters' rods. Plant damage might be further reduced by adapting such extenders at the tip of portable harvesters' rods.…”

Effects of Frequency and Mass of Eccentric Balls on Picking Force of The Coffee Fruit for The As-Fabricated Harvesting Machines

“…Assuming that the volume inertial-torque of the vibration shaft is ) * + . The angular acceleration of this axis , * that is caused by this torque is calculated by followed equation [10]:…”

Adjustments for axial and sieves systems of coffee harvesters

“…The harvesters' adjustments to remove the highest number of fruits are usually performed by attempts, varying the vibration from 650 to 950 cycles min -1 (Silva et al, 2008). For the coffee-threshing stage, there are several studies (Giraldo et al, 2017;Junior et al, 2016;Santinato et al, 2016;Silva et al, 2010Silva et al, , 2015Villibor et al, 2016) which show results of the selective harvesting, better adjustments, quality of the operation, among other *Corresponding author. E-mail: fpsantinato@hotmail.com.…”