FIELD EVALUATION OF THE EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE FOR RICE STRAW BALING

Abstract

Reduction of environmental pollution is an important task for the Egyptian government. The burning of rice straw is one of the main sources of seasonal air pollution that known as black cloud. Rice straw may be used for several economical applications such as animal feed, animal house bedding, constructions etc. The loose nature of rice straw makes it difficult to handle rice straw from the field to the locations in which it is required. The availability of baling machines may attract the farmers to collect and sell rice straw bales instead of burning in the field. Several governmental organizations have been assigned to make the technology of rice straw collection and baling available for the farmers to control the phenomena of burning rice straw in the fields. Consequently, variable types of the locally fabricated as well as imported balers are available. The current research aimed to evaluate the performance of the most famous types of available balers in baling the mechanically harvested rice straw. The evaluated machines were; a) the locally fabricated tractor drawn and stationary rectangular balers, b) the imported tractor drown and stationary rectangular balers and, c) the imported cylindrical baler. The machines were evaluated for baling rate, straw losses (unpicked straw), bale density, loose bales, field capacity and efficiency. The results show that pickup rate ranged from 42 to 62 kg/min for all the tested balers. Stationery rectangular balers deliver up to 151 bale/h compared to 112 bale/h for the tractor pulled balers. Bale density for all the rectangular balers ranged from 131 to 146 kg/m3. The performance of the locally made rectangular balers was very close to that of the imported balers either tractor drawn or stationary machines. Therefore, the locally made types of balers may compete in the local market and for export. The cylindrical baler forms stronger bales of larger size and higher density.