Test and performance evaluation of a tractor front - mounted rice reaper and comparison it with two available reapers

It is very important to test and evaluate the performance and ability of new-design machinery in comparison with available ones. Based on this, a tractor front-mounted rice reaper was compared and evaluated with tiller- mounted and self-propelled reapers. Field experiments were conducted to determine forward speed, field capacity, harvesting losses, labor and costs. Experiments were conducted based on completely randomized design with four replications. Analysis of variance and mean values results indicated that there is a meaningful difference between field capacity of tractor- mounted reaper and two other types. Increasing the work width and forward speed increased the field capacity about 2.5 to 3.5 times more than two other types. Maximum field capacity (0.845 ha/h) was obtained at forward speed of 5.4 km/h. Crop losses for tractor- mounted reaper was at range of 2 to 3 percent. There was a difference between crop losses at speeds of 2.2 and 3.5 km/h for tractor- mounted with two other types but at 5.4 km/h it was not. Labor and costs for harvesting one hectare were about 4, 9.5 and 8.5 person-hour and 79530, 119830 and 143026 for tractor- mounted, tiller-mounted and self-propelled rice reapers, respectively.