Effect of Partially Mechanical and Manual Harvesting and Sowing Method on Yield Losses of Sesame in Eastern Sudan

Abstract

Sesame harvesting is a critical operation that needs to be carried out at the right time. A field experiment was conducted for two successive seasons (2001 and 2002) to compare losses of partially mechanical harvesting by the binder and manual harvesting of sesame as affected by two sowing methods ( rows and broadcasting ). Three types of harvesting losses (uncut plants, cut and untied plants and inverted plants within the bundle), total harvest loss and harvest time and cost of harvesting per feddan (one feddan = 0.42 ha) were calculated for the two seasons. The results indicated that row planting with both binder and manual harvesting recorded the lowest total losses of about 5.7% in the first season and 6.3% in the second season. In both seasons, all types of losses were higher with the wide level disc sowing than with row planting. The binder total mean losses were 8.2% and 8.5%, while for the manual harvesting they were about 7.1% in both seasons. The average time taken for harvesting by the binder was about 0.4 h/fed. and by labour was 22.2 h/fed. The highest cost of harvesting one feddan was for the method of broadcast sowing with manual harvesting. It was 2086 and 1725 SD/fed. (1U$=220.2SD) in the first and second seasons, respectively. The lowest cost was obtained for row sowing with binder harvesting, valued at 1262.5 SD/fed. and 925 SD/fed., for the two seasons, respectively. All differences between the effects treatments on most of the measured parameters were highly significant at the 1% level.