Performance Evaluation of Reaper-Binder for Wheat

In Ethiopia, harvesting cereal crops is one of the major attentive agricultural operations in agriculture production, which demands a considerable amount of labor. There are significant issues with labor costs and availability during the harvest of wheat crops. Therefore, it is crucial to use mechanical technologies to assure timely harvesting operations and to reduce field losses in order to increase farm productivity. The objective of this study was to evaluate the self-propelled reaper-binder performance in a farmer's field. The reaper binder's effective field capacity was determined to be 0.108 hectares per hour, with a field efficiency of 84.65 percent and an operating speed of 2.55 km per hour. Fuel consumption of 10.66 l/ha was recorded. Total grain losses during reaper binder harvesting were 2.02% compared to 3.30% during manual harvesting. Harvesting with a reaper binder and harvesting by manual cost 1,391.18 Birr per hectare and 2850 Birr per hectare, respectively. Compared to manual harvesting with a sickle, reaper binder harvesting costs were lowered by 48.82 percent. Therefore, mechanical harvesting is more feasible and economical than manual harvesting in terms of time, money, and labor . Keywords: Harvesting, Mechanical harvesting, Reaper binder, Wheat DOI: 10.7176/ISDE/12-6-01 Publication date: October 31 st 2022