Operational performance of the mechanized and semi-mechanized potato harvest

Abstract

ABSTRACT:Potato is an important crop plant throughout the world. Harvesting is a fundamental step in its production system. Maybe, it is the most complex and expensive operation. Thus, the objective of this work was to compare the cost of the mechanized and semi-mechanized harvest, the operational capacity and the production losses during the potato harvest process. The work was accomplished in a commercial farming, cultivated under pivot system, in the municipal district of Perdizes -MG, Brazil. A completely randomized design with two treatments was used: mechanized and semi-mechanized harvest. The mechanized harvest used a self-propelled harvester. In the semiautomated harvest, a digger mounted on tractor was used and the potato was manually harvested. It was concluded that the cost of mechanized harvest was 49.03% lower than the cost of semimechanized harvest. On average, the harvester had a work for 23 workers in manual harvest. Mechanized harvest showed losses of 2.35% of potato yield, while the semi-mechanized harvest showed losses of 6.32%.KEYWORDS: mechanical harvest, field efficiency, operational cost, Solanum tuberosum. DESEMPENHO OPERACIONAL DA COLHEITA MECANIZADA E SEMIMECANIZADA DE BATATA RESUMO: A batata é a cultura olerácea mais importante em todo o mundo. Dentre os processos que compõem seu sistema de produção, a colheita apresenta-se como etapa essencial, sendo uma das operações com maior custo agregado. O objetivo deste trabalho foi comparar a colheita mecanizada e semimecanizada da cultura da batata no que diz respeito aos custos, capacidade operacional e perdas de produção. O trabalho foi realizado em lavoura comercial, cultivada em área sob sistema de pivô central, no município de Perdizes-MG. O delineamento experimental utilizado foi o inteiramente casualizado, com dois tratamentos: colheita mecanizada e semimecanizada. A colheita mecanizada foi realizada utilizando-se de uma colhedora autopropelida. Na colheita semimecanizada, empregou-se um arrancador tratorizado seguido de catação manual. De acordo com os resultados, pôde-se concluir que o custo da colheita mecanizada foi 49,03% menor do que o custo da colheita semimecanizada. Em média, a colhedora realizou um trabalho relativo a 23 trabalhadores em catação manual. A colheita mecanizada apresentou perdas de 2,35% em relação à produtividade da área, enquanto a colheita semimecanizada apresentou perdas de 6,32%.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: colheita mecânica, eficiência de campo, custo operacional, Solanum tuberosum.

An Investigation Into the Effect of Using Different Harvesting Methods on the Indicators of Potato Crop Loss

“…Arfa, (2007) indicated that the equipment in the harvest season has an important impact on reducing the damage of tubers. Unlike da Cunha et al, (2011), who found that the cost of semi-mechanized harvesting is more than 49 percent of the cost of mechanized harvest, as well as, Khan et al, (2011), Söğüt and Öztürk (2011) indicated that the number, size, and weight of tubers increase with the delay time of harvest. Sometimes, farmers who have small spaces may tend to harvest potatoes manually or use a lifting machine of one line since there are no developed machines since it is costly, so farmers are not to have it.…”

Dynamic Potato Identification and Cleaning Method Based on RGB-D

“…At present, the potato planting area in China is approximately 5.6 million acres, and it is one of the four major food crops in China (Xu et al, 2021). With the continuous development of the potato industry, the planting area has expanded unceasingly, and mechanical harvesting has become the main potato harvesting method that lowers the cost of harvesting (Zhao, 2020;Cunha et al 2011), but there is still a problem that there are many impurities, such as clods and stones, which are similar to the potato in size and quality, which makes it difficult to separate these impurities from the potatoes after mechanized harvesting (Li et al, 2019;Zhang et al, 2021). Especially in the northern heavy clay soil area, the soil viscosity is high, so there is a high impurity rate of soil clods in potatoes after harvesting, which increases the difficulty in separating clods from potatoes (Lu et al, 2017).…”