Research on fuel consumption in harvesting paddy rice plant with head-feeding combine harvesters

Abstract

In order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, fuel efficiency standards and comparisons among models are required for agricultural machinery as well as automobiles. However, a method for quantitatively evaluating fuel consumption of the combine harvester does not currently exist. We examined the effects of harvesting velocity and crop conditions on fuel efficiency during reaping, conveying, threshing, sorting and cutting for head-feeding combine harvesters. We measured hourly fuel consumption under different harvesting velocity and crop conditions and performed a multiple regression analysis using a stepwise regression for hourly fuel consumption under various conditions. The hourly fuel consumption can be explained by the following factors: flow rate of dried crop (kg s−1), grain number of unhusked rice per gram (g−1), and moisture content of unhusked rice (%). The adjusted coefficient of determination was 0.887, and the Standard Error of Calibration was 0.238 L h−1. Through verification of the multiple regression equation for hourly fuel consumption using these conditions as explanatory variables, a difference between these cultivars was not confirmed. Further, we use the multiple regression equation obtained in this study to propose a method for its application to other combines.