1. Alternativa haspelkoncept vid skördetröskning av vitklöver
- Author
-
Westlin, Hugo and Johansson, Tomas
- Subjects
Brush ,Header ,Jordbruksvetenskap ,food and beverages ,Rod ,Agricultural Science ,Combine ,White clover - Abstract
The interest for growing grass seed is increasing in Sweden, and there is a potential from several foreign seed companies that would like to establish contacts with growers. Thus, the Swedish growth of grass seed is small compared to other countries in Europe. Growing grass seed is an economical unsure crop, the yield is much controlled by pollination and weather during harvest, as well as access to technical equipment during harvest, drying and storage. One important thing to a successful growth is to reduce losses during harvest. White clover grows low (only 10-15 cm high) and is therefore hard to put up on the header without losses. According to studies as much as 30% of the biological yield can be lost thru wrong settings of combine during harvest. Also, the germination of the seed can be lost due to hard treatment in the combine. Special equipment for grass seed growth is often expensive and is not always a profitable affair for the farmer. Here there are opportunities for improvements of existing techniques. This study aimed to raise profitability for the growth of white clover (Trifolium repens), primary by reducing losses during harvest. The goal was to develop performance enhancing solutions for a traditional combine reel, while at the same time facilitating the driver´s work to create even input in the combine. 4 different alternatives were tested during field trial in the summer of 2020. The results show that a specially designed pickup header gave the lowest losses during racking up white clover. Thus, it had the highest contents of soil minerals in tested seeds. The tested modifications of a traditional reel, reducing rod distance to 6 cm and to replace the rods with a brush, unfortunately did not had the desired effects. For both these alternatives the losses from the header and the losses behind the combine were higher than for a traditional header with rod spacing 12 cm. The brush mounted, with the aim to softly rake the crop up on the header where to soft and were bended, and the desired effect were not achieved.
- Published
- 2021