SUGARCANE MECHANICAL HARVESTING-EVALUATION OF LOCAL APLICATIONS | ||||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||||
| Article 9, Volume 6, Issue 1, January 2015, Page 129-141 PDF (438.83 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2015.41814 | ||||
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| Authors | ||||
| H. Abd-El Mawla1; B. Hemeida2 | ||||
| 1Prof. & Head of Ag. Eng. Department, Al-Azhar University, Assiut. | ||||
| 2Agric. Eng. Res. Inst., A.R.C. Egypt. | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| The design and commercial manufacturing of mechanical sugarcane harvesters have taken place firstly in Hawaii, Australia, Southern USA (Louisiana and Florida) and Japan where the sugarcane production is fully mechanized. Significant researches of mechanical cane harvesting have also been done in Barbados, Brazil, Trinidad, Cuba, India and several other countries. Normally there are two sugarcane mechanical harvesting systems classified as follow: 1-Whole-stalk sugarcane harvesting system (the system which delivers whole stalk of canes). Large self-propelled whole stalk harvesters operated only within full mechanization systems. Other tractor mounted machines or small single axle walkman steering cane cutters are fabricated for the conditions of developed countries. 2-Cut-chop-harvesting or chopper harvesting system (the system which chop the cane into billets while harvesting). This system is also called sugarcane combine harvesting system. All other cane harvesters are whole-stalk-harvesters developed to perform stalk base cutting as principle function and some of harvesters may include mechanisms for topping and/or windrowing in addition. Since manual harvesting of sugarcane is actually whole stalk harvesting by labors so that in changing from manual to a mechanical harvesting system, whole stalk harvesting may fit more easily. When replacing manual by mechanical harvesting whole stalk harvesting matches the existing system of reaping, transportation, storage and the feeding of cane into mill. Actually for semi mechanization, the machine will perform one or more of the functions done by the labor performing mix sugarcane harvesting system. Developed countries apply full mechanization for harvesting entire production of sugarcane. Australia use chopper machines for full mechanization sugarcane harvesting. United States of America apply full mechanization of sugarcane harvesting systems either by choppers (in Hawaii and Florida) or by solider whole stalk harvesters (in Louisiana). Countries grow large areas of sugarcane such as Brazil, India, Cuba, South Africa and China may have large agricultural sectors that economically apply full mechanization, medium sectors that apply semi mechanization and small size farms that still harvest sugarcane manually. These countries fabricate both of full and semi mechanization technology for sugarcane harvesting. Other countries such as Iran, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam and other developed countries fabricate successful semi mechanization harvesters. Several trails have been done to locally demonstrate imported sugarcane harvesters. The demonstrated machines were not accepted by the local farmers because of poor performance. Other trails to develop and test local designs of sugarcane cutter harvesters through graduate student research programs have not yet been succeeded. The current article devoted to review the commercially available cane harvesters, report the efforts to mechanize cane harvesting and evaluate the conditions that determine the application of cane mechanical harvesting. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| Mechanization- Types of cane harvester- full mechanization of cane harvesters- Semi mechanization of cane harvesters- Mechanize cane harvesting in Egypt | ||||
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