Influence of Physical Crop Parameters of the Sorghum Crop (Sorghum bicolor L.) on the Design of the Sorghum Harvester
Raghavendra Veerammanavara
Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
Prakash K V
Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
Rajashekar M
Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
Murali M
Department of Soil and Water Conservation Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
H Manjunath *
Department of Renewable Energy Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
Siddesh Marihonnappanavara
Farm Machinery Testing Centre, College of Agricultural Engineering, Raichur, India.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor L.), popularly known as “Jowar”, is a cereal grain found in tropical and subtropical climates. The physical properties of the sorghum crop help in various machine and operational parameters like design of cutting unit, conveying unit, design of cutting blade, blade velocity, design of row divider and power requirement of sorghum harvester. Therefore, this study aimed to study the influence of physical crop parameters of the sorghum crop on the design of the sorghum harvester. In the experiment, seven varieties, namely Hytech-3201, Varada-14, Sriram-5001, Jockey, M 35-1, Mahindra and Teja sorghum crop varieties were selected. The crop parameters considered for the present study included plant height, stalk diameter, crop density, and moisture content of the crop at the time of harvesting. The crop parameters under both farmers’ field conditions and the research plots of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) were carefully determined following standard agronomic procedures. A one square meter frame was placed at five places chosen randomly in the plot to determine the crop density. The height of the plants was measured at five different locations selected randomly for sorghum. The diameter of the sorghum plant stalk was measured at the cutting height of the stalk of the sorghum from five randomly selected plants. A Stanley steel tape with 0.1 cm divisions was used for measuring the length of the ear head of sorghum. Plant-to-plant spacing was measured by measuring the distance between one plant to another plant. The results revealed that the heights of the sorghum crop of different selected varieties ranged from 1450 mm to 1890 mm. It was observed that the average diameters of selected sorghum varieties' stalks ranged from 12-33 mm, and the ear head length of the sorghum crop ranged from 170-350 mm. The average crop stand densities of the sorghum crop were from 10-27 plants per m2. The row spacing and plant spacing were 35-40 cm and 14-18 cm, respectively. Designing the harvester based on the optimised physical properties ensures efficient operation, reduced crop loss, and improved field performance under varying crop and field conditions.
Keywords: Cutting energy, engineering properties, physical crop parameter, sorghum harvester, stalk diameter