Windrowers, Reapers, Reaper Binders and Forage Harvesters Windrowers
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Windrowers, reapers, reaper binders and forage harvesters Windrowers • In some areas, farmers find that cutting and windrowing the top portion of the plants with the grain attached permit earlier harvesting and protect the grain under the following conditions. • (i) When the grain is unevenly ripened. • (ii) When fields are weedy. • (iii) When the straw is green but the crop is ripe. • (iv) When the grain is high in moisture. • (v) When crop conditions are such that legume crops tend to shatter if left until ripe, and • (vi) When weather conditions delay direct combining. The windrowing machine consists of a power-takeoff-driven knife, platform canvas, and reel. Self-Propelled Windrowers ❖ Self-propelled windrowers consist of two types of headers. The augur cross feed is the most common type on hay machines but is too aggressive for grain. The draper type is employed on windrowers intended for both grain and hay. ❖ The maximum width that should be cut with a hay windrower is limited primarily by the maximum size of windrow that will cure in an acceptable time. ❖ Windrowers with cutting widths of 3.65 m and 4.25 m are popular in irrigated areas where hay yields per cutting are usually 2.2 to 3.4 Mg of dry matter per ha. ❖ Knife speeds are about the same as on mower-conditioners but strokes are often 6 to 10 mm greater than the 76.2 mm guard spacing. Chrome-plated knife sections are used almost universally. ❖ Conditioning attachments are usually 0.9 to 1.4 m wide, but the direct-feed, full-width-conditioner system of pull-type mower-conditioners has also been applied to some 2.75 m self-propelled machines. reapers, reaper binders ✓ Harvesting equipment may be manually operated, animal-drawn or power operated. Sickle is the most widely used harvesting tool for various crops. Sickle used may be plain or serrated edged and both types are found effective in cutting plants. ✓ Animal drawn reapers have been tried and proved successful on wheat crops. Power operated machines can be reaper, mower, rotary power scythes, forage harvester, binder and conventional combines. ✓ A manually operated rotary power scythe (push- cutter) uses a high-speed engine for rotating the cutter blade. ✓ A rotary circular disc with plain or serrated edge accomplishes the cutting by impact force. The unit is mounted on the back of the operator, who also activates the cutting rod. ✓ The crop is cut and laid in windrows. The output varies between 0.2 to 0.4 ha/day. Tractor front mounted reapers and mowers are also being used for harvesting various crops. It can be powered with power tiller or tractor. ✓ Combine harvesters are now becoming increasingly popular in northern India and also in other parts of country. ✓ Combines are being used mostly for harvesting crops like wheat, paddy, soybean, sunflower and other crops. Both types of combines viz. self-propelled and tractor operated are common for these crops. forage harvesters ➢ The flail type forage harvesters use free-swinging chains, hammers or knives to sever the fodder plants by beating or cutting action. At the time of plants being severed, the flails or knives travel in the same direction the machine is moving. ➢ The flail choppers do not have chopping knives to chop the material into acceptable lengths for silage. ➢ The flails are just used for severing the plants and harvested material can be blown into windrows for curing. The beating by the flails more or less conditions the hay. ➢ A simple flail type forage harvester can be mounted behind the tractor. Offset types of flail type forage harvester are preferred as they avoid problems associated with one set of tractor wheels running through the crop before it is cut. ➢ The degree of chopping and laceration is governed mainly by the rotor speed, partly by the relationship between rotor speed and forward speed and partly by the clearance between the flail tips and an adjustable shear bar. ➢ Rotor speed has much more effect than forward speed. Fitting two shear bars can reduce the length of chop. The machine can pick up crops fairly cleanly from a windrow. Flail type forage harvester fitted with adjustable twin-chop shear-plate. • A number of forage harvesters have large diameter cylinder with multiple knives, designed to avoid serious damage of cylinder by foreign materials, by allowing individual knife to either bend or forced inward to create wide clearance between knife and shear-plate. • The damaged knife can be easily replaced. The machine has simplified feed and delivery systems. One such design uses a very wide contra-rotating cylinder in conjunction with a pair of feed rollers. • The machine ejects the foreign matters such as small rocks and uses little energy in propulsion of the crop. Some new designs have achieved high throughput in relation to power input, partly as a result of less chopping. • Electro-hydraulic systems are used on high- output forage harvesters for effective and rapid adjustment of discharge chute angle and the flaps. Tractor operated Flail type forage harvester cum chopper • This machine in a single operation can harvest chop and load the chopped fodder in the tractor-trailer attached to the machine. It is operated by a 26.1 kW tractor. • This machine in a single operation can harvest, chop and load the chopped fodder like maize, bajra, and oats in the trailer attached to the machine. • It consisted of a rotary shaft on which flails are mounted to harvest the crop, auger for conveying the cut crop, cutters for chopping & conveying chopped fodder through outlet into the trailer. • After the blades cut the crop, it comes in auger, which conveys it to the chopping mechanism. The chopping mechanism cuts the crop into pieces and chopped material is thrown out with a high speed and is filled into the trailer hitched to the machine. Working capacity of forage harvester is 0.2 ha/h. Weight of the machine is about 670.0 kg. Details of forage harvester in field • http://ecoursesonline.iasri.res.in/mod/page/view.p hp?id=2244 • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnNjRLTi8FM .