Design and Development of Sugarcane Leaf Pruning Machine and Trash Incorporator

Abstract

The pruning of sugarcane leaves is usually done before harvesting to facilitate human labor in harvesting and to increase the stalk weight. Besides, sugarcane residue incorporation is important for increasing soil fertility. There is no equipment that could operate both processes of leaf pruning and trash incorporation. The objective of this research was to design the equipment for operating both processes by applying the hydrostatic power transmission to the sugarcane leaf pruning machine and the mechanical power transmission to the spiral notched disc. A diameter of the sugarcane leaf pruning roller was 248 mm, which revealed that filling the grass trimmer line could increase diameters up to 1,054 mm, and a diameter of the spiral notched disc was 18 inches. It was tested with the DOAKhonKaen3 sugarcane cultivar at the age of 9 months in Sikhio district, Nakhon Ratchasima province. The average soil cone index was 3.4 MPa. The soil moisture content and bulk density were 14.20% (db) and 1.64 g cm^-3, respectively. The experiments were conducted at a forward speed of 1.95 km h^-1, gang angles of 36°, disk revolution speeds of 150 rpm, and roller revolution speeds of 800 rpm. The experimental results showed that the trash covering efficiency was 92.4%, the pruning of sugarcane leave efficiency was 82.2%, the effective field capacity or performance was 1.75 rai h^-1, and the fuel consumption was 1.65 L rai^-1. The cost of this sugarcane leaf pruning machine and trash Incorporator was 164,000 Baht. The break-even point was 116.21 rais. The use of this machine can facilitate workers in harvesting without burning sugarcane field.