Rice Research Harvesting Techniques with a Small Plot Combine
1979
Harvesting lowland rice (Oryza sativa L.) research plots has been done primarily by hand-cutting the grain stalks and carrying the cut material to a stationary thresher for threshing. The manual labor involved in the above operation makes lowland rice plot harvesting an expensive labor-intensive operation and limits the scope and type of experimental work that can be accomplished. Recently, a small self-propelled combine (Suzue model CP730C, Suzue Agric. Mach. Co., LTD, Japan), suitable for harvesting small areas of lowland rice, (modified by replacing the bulk auger with a sample pan) was evaluated for use in harvesting rice research plots. The combine was evaluated for the most effective length of a 0.8 m harvest swath on three cultivars, ‘Labelle,’ ‘Lebonnet,’ and ‘Delia.’ Harvest swath lengths evaluated ranged from 1.5 to 12 m in 1.5 m increments. An area 0.4 ✕ 6.0 m was hand harvested as the check. Another area 0.8 ✕ 6.0 m was harvested across the rows to simulate broadcast rice. A harvest swath 1.5 m long gave consistently larger yields than hand-harvested. Mechanically harvested swaths of 3 to 12 m resulted in similar yields for all cultivars. For ‘Lebonnet’ and ‘Delia’ hand-harvested and mechanically-harvested swaths greater than 3 m long were similar in yield. Mechanically-harvested 3 to 12 m swaths of ‘Labelle,’ with the rows gave lower yields than mechanically-harvested swaths across the rows.
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