Effects of operating speed, cutter bar cutting speed and forage plant moisture content on performance of a forage harvester

Abstract

Many researchers have advocated for the establishment of grazing zones and pasture farming as one method of reducing conflict between farmers and herders. In most developing countries, pastures are harvested using manual means, which is tedious and time-consuming. As a result, a self-propelled forage harvester was developed. This research looks into the effects of forage plant moisture content, cutter bar cutting speed, and operating speed on the cutting and field efficiencies of the forage harvester. The experiment was based on a central composite rotatable design (CCRD). The machine's testing revealed that a combination of an operating speed of 2.4 km/h, a cutting speed of 55 m/min and forage plant moisture content of 55% yielded the highest cutting efficiency and field efficiency of 94.42% and 89.95%, respectively. The cutting efficiency was significantly (P≤0.001) affected by the cutting speed and the forage plant moisture content, whereas all the parameters significantly (P≤0.001) affected the field efficiency. The desirability function method in rsm was used to optimize the machine settings via numerical optimization. This resulted in a combination of 2.33 km/hr operating speed, 54 m/min cutting speed, and 67% plant moisture content (wb) that offered optimal values of cutting efficiency of 94.36% and field efficiency of 91.3%. The study's findings were used to establish harvester settings that would produce the best machine performance.