COMPARATIVE FIELD PERFORMANCE OF DIFFERENT RICE HARVESTING METHODS IN DINAJPUR

Abstract

Harvesting is one of the key labour intensive works in rice cultivation. Production cost of rice becomes high due to labor shortage and high wage rate during harvesting time. Different types of combine harvesters have been used for harvesting rice in Bangladesh for several years. Thus, this study was carried out to compare field performance during harvesting time field efficiency (Ef), effective field capacity (EFC), fuel consumption (FC), harvesting loss (H) and harvesting cost among a large combine harvester (LCH), medium combine harvester (MCH) and manual harvesting of rice under similar field conditions. The field performances of these rice harvesting methods were measured during boro rice harvesting season of 2019. The EFC for LCH, MCH and manual in harvest operation were found to be 0.617 ha/hr, 0.376 ha/hr and 0.0042 ha/hr, respectively. The field efficiency for LCH, MCH and manual in harvest operation were found to be 80.04%, 86.79% and 72.92%, respectively in terms of time and operation. For the fuel consumption, LCH consumed more fuel (34.40 L/ha) as compared to MCH (33.80 L/ha). The harvesting losses for LCH and MCH were 3.49% and 3.06%, respectively. The loss in manual harvesting was reported to be 7-20%. The results showed that manual rice harvesting cost was 15000 Tk/ha, on the other hand, harvesting cost using large combine harvester and medium combine harvester were found 6713 Tk/ha and 5626Tk/ha, respectively. In the socioeconomic and land condition of Bangladeshi farmers, rice harvesting operations can be done by using medium combine harvester.