Design, Construction and Performance Evaluation of a Reaper for Small Farms (a Case Study: Iran)

Abstract

Annually about 0.2 million hectares of farms in Iran country are not harvested. The main reason of not harvested area is the lack of a suitable machine for harvesting small and rough fields. To prevent damage caused by not harvested area, a machine with a 1 m length cutter bar and 6.5 hp engines that was suitable for small farms, having high reliability and manoeuvrability on rough terrain was designed, fabricated and evaluated. The results of machine performance evaluation showed that forward speed has a significant effect on field efficiency and crop losses. Increasing the machine forward speed caused decreasing the field efficiency and increasing crop losses. The forward speed of 0.5 m/s had the lowest crop losses and was less exhausting and had the maximum energy saved than compare to 1 and 1.5 m/s. Therefore, the forward speed of 0.5 m/s had the best result. Results of cost analysis showed that the total cost of machine was 20 $/ha. The cost of manual harvesting was 154 $/ha. The minimum justified ownership area for the machine was 1.3 ha which is appropriate for agricultural systems with small farms.