Evaluation of losses in the cotton harvest at different speeds

Abstract

The objective of this study was to detect losses in cotton harvesting depending on the travel speed of the harvester, in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 seasons. The evaluation of losses during harvest were made with a cotton harvester by John Deere, model 9996, with 257.43 kW (350 hp) of engine power. The simple random sampling method with strip scheme was used in order to infer the population about the variables studied. In each strip were disposed the treatments consisted of two displacement speeds 1.14 and 1.36 m s-1 (4.1 and 4.9 km h-1). The loss of cotton pre-harvest averaged 32.49 and 2.17 kg ha-1, representing a percentage loss of 8.16 and 0.54 % in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 seasons, respectively, values considered relatively low and close to the values found in the literature for the state of Mato Grosso. The average total losses found were 534.32 and 210.86 kg ha-1, representing a percentage loss of 11.22 and 8.23 % in 2012/2013 and 2013/2014 seasons, respectively, these values remained close to the considered acceptable limit, which is 10 % for percentage losses.

Keywords

• Harvester
• Quantitative losses
• Speed