Assessment and Comparison of Conventional and Straw Walker Combines Harvesting Losses in Fars Province

Wheat is the most important staple crop in Iran. By reducing losses of wheat at harvest stage, a significant increase of wheat fields production is possible. In view of increasing acceptance and the demand for straw walker combine, especially for harvesting the wheat, under present present investigation, the harvesting losses rate of the conventional combine and the straw walker combine of John Deere 955 and Class 76 were compared. The straw walker and the conventional combines were tested under quite the same field conditions with 14% moisture content. Further losses at different parts of combine such as cutting unit, threshing and separation, tank, MOG and seed germination percentage were also measured. The tested straw walker and the conventional combines were selected from Jandier (Hepko) and class companies. The results showed that the total harvest losses of the straw walker combine and the conventional combine in both Claas and John Deere, had a significant difference. The losses of John Deere straw walker combine mostly occurred at combine wheat storage tank at the value of 4.16%, whereas the losses in straw walker Class combine was mostly occurred at threshing and cleaning units which was about 8.13%. It should be noted that losses of both of tested combine had a significant difference as copared with losses in conventional combine. Finally, it was observed that fuel consumption in case of straw walker Class combine was 55 litres per hectare and 69.44 litres per hectare for straw walker John Deere combine.