A STUDY ON THE OPTIMUM PERIODS FOR HARVESTING MACHINES EVALUATION OF SOME PARAMETERS AFFECTING PERFORMANCE OF TWO DIFFERENT CORN PLANTING AND HARVESTING CORN

Abstract

The experiments were conducted at the Fann of Rice Mechanization I Center, Meet EI-Deepa, Kafr EI-Sheikh Govemorate dtning the agricultural season 1995-1996. An area of about 6. 75 feddan of clay soil was used for these experiments. I Two eli fferent types of corn harvesting machine were used 111 this

research as follow:

1- JOHN DEER-4420 combine \\ th working \\ dth 3.00 m and 120 HP (93 I kW) engine power. 2- BourGoin-TB2 com picker \\ th working dth 1.50m. Th.is type of com I harvesting machines was draw and operate by using a Ford-tractor-82 HP (61.94 kW) engine power.

The main obJectives of this study wc1•c as follows:

1- To study the effect of planting dates on corn yield and crop specifications.

I 2- To optimize some operating parameters, (planting date, kernel moisture content. harvesting forward speed and cylinder speed) which affect on the I field performance of the corn harvesting machines (field capacity, field efficiency, machine losses, machine productivity, kemel damage and fuel consumption rate). 3- To estimate the harvesting costs for each types of corn harvesters and manual harvesting.

The two mentioned harvesting machines were used to harvest the corn

I crop at three different harvesting forward speeds, four different kernel moistme contents and three cylinder speeds. /\11 of these operating parameters were I conducted for all different planting dates.