Comparison of field performances between two typical mini combine harvesters in grain corn production

Abstract

A mini combine harvester was efficiently designed and developed to harvest grain corn on a small scale farm in order to reduce manpower and operating time as delayed harvesting leads to grain loss. Two typical mini combine harvesters namely Kubota DC105X (KDC) and World Star 7.0Plus (WS) have been introduced to farmers as high output, low fuel consumption and ease of maintenance in grain corn production. This research was undertaken to evaluate and compare the field performance of KDC and WS mini combine harvester which included the field efficiency (FE), effective field capacity (EFC), fuel consumption (FC), field machine index (FMI) and total field time under similar field condition and soil properties. A time-motion study was conducted during harvesting in two consecutive growing seasons. The mean values of EFC, FE, FC, FMI and total field time for KDC were found to be 0.28 ha/hr, 50.00%, 16.85 l/ha, 0.84 and 3.55 hr/ha, respectively. The mean values of EFC, FE, FC, FMI and total field time for WS were found to be 0.25 ha/hr, 54.35%, 12.57 l/ha, 0.81 and 3.99 hr/ha, respectively. The statistical analysis (ANOVA) shows that there were no significant differences in field performance between both mini combine harvesters at 5% significance level (α = 0.05). Both mini combine harvesters had performed with consistent and reliable results in conducting the harvesting. This study concludes that the WS is more efficient than KDC in terms of FE and FC.

Evaluation of Field Performance and Energy Consumption of a Medium-sized Combine Harvester for Harvesting Glutinous Rice in Malaysia

“…Plot 3 had a higher FS value of 2.47 km/h than Plots 2 and 1, which have FS values of 2.38 km/h and 2.40 km/h, respectively, indicating that Plot 3 had 3.8 and 2.9% higher TFC than Plots 2 and 1, respectively. The result of FS in this study is lower than the results reported by Elsoragaby et al (2019) and Masroon et al (2020b) but higher than the result reported by Amponsah et al (2017). It also agrees with the results reported by Masroon et al (2020a), who also reported a moderate FS of 2.55 km/h and stated that when harvesting with a medium-sized combine harvester, a Note.…”

“…The effective harvesting time is accounted for 56.40% of glutinous rice fields' total combine harvester operation time. Masroon et al (2020a) and Masroon et al (2020b) reported that the harvesting time of 2.14 h/ ha and 2.68 h/ha, respectively, which are 13.55 and 30.97% greater than the harvesting time recorded in this study. In another study, Elsoragaby et al (2019) obtained 1.36 h/ ha, 26.50% less than the time recorded in this study.…”

“…It indicates that the FE difference between the three experimental plots is insignificant. The EFC and FE values in this study are greater than those obtained by Masroon et al (2020a) and Masroon et al (2020b) but less than those obtained by Elsoragaby et al (2019). It demonstrated that the medium-sized combine harvester investigated in this study was adequate to perform appropriately during the harvesting of glutinous rice.…”

“…The operating distance covered by the machine during the operation was one of the elements that affected the efficiency of the harvesting performance. This study had a total working distance of 30 meters, which was longer than the distances reported in the previous studies with lower working distances (Amponsah et al, 2017;Elsoragaby et al, 2019;Masroon et al, 2020aMasroon et al, , 2020b. The efficiency results obtained in this study may also be attributed to disparities in the settings of the operational parameters of the combine harvester and the swath covered by the machine.…”

Enhancing the Efficiency of Rice Harvesting: A Study on the Design and Evaluation of Ripper Type Rice Harvesters

“…Where PR stands for power requirements (kW), fu stands for fuel consumption (l/h), ρf stands for fuel density (0.85 kg/l for diesel), LCV stands for the fuel's lower calorific value (10000 kcal/kg), 427 stands for the thermo-mechanical equivalent (J/kcal), ηth stands for the engine thermal efficiency (approximately 35% for diesel engines), and ηmec stands for the engine mechanical efficiency (approximately 80% for diesel engines). The specific energy (SE) was calculated according to Equation 5 [25] as follows:…”