The Pluses of Using Combine Harvesters in Farming

A classic combine harvester as a universal machine may be adjusted also to harvesting of corn and soya (Przybyl and Sek, 2010). The next stage in adjusting the machine for harvesting of a particular crop was the change of the harvesting device and mounting relevant working elements of the combine such as: elongation of a table and equipping it with vertical side scythes designed for harvesting of rapeseed (Zak et al., 2007).

Combine harvesters produced in recent years are advanced machines with regard to mechatronics. Operation parameters of harvesters are controlled by means of sensors and proceeded by an on-board computer which automatically selects working settings, optimally to existing field conditions (Baruah, Panesar, 2005a, 2005b; Nik et al., 2009; Tanas, Zagajski, 2008). Due to the use of automatic control system of working units, harvesters became more efficient. For example, moisture sensors, which were used in harvesters cause decrease of damage and grain losses in the harvesting process (Liu, Leonard, 1993; Miu, Kutzbachb, 2008a, 2008b; Tanas et al., 2008;Tanas, Zagajski, 2010; Molendowski et al., 2012).

Some farmers use manual labor to cut the crop and then use the combine harvester to thresh and clean it stationary, Other follow direct combining but without special rice grains header attachment, The crop is new and sensitive to harvesting time and therefore poor adjustment of the combine may lead to bad performance of the combine, therefore operators are essential to improve the efficiency of rice grains direct harvesting (less labor, less losses, high quality of grain and reasonable work rate). This will help the farmer for high production and good crop quality, which means high profit.

Rice grains is one of the major staple food consumed by 70% of the world’s population. It occupies one fifth of the total land covered under cereal crops (Chakravarthi and Naravaneni, 2006). Rice, which is mainly, consumed as a whole grain supplies 20% of daily calories for the world population. The adaptation of rice cultivars to wide climatic conditions has led to the development of thousands of rice varieties having diverse quality features in terms of physical, cooking, eating and product development characteristics (Bhattacharya, 2005).

Recently, rice harvesting became a problem for farmers due to shortage of labor and consequently, the increase of wages in the country. With the advent of industrialization, there has been a migration of labor from the agriculture sector to the industrial sector leaving limited numbers in the later sector to do the labor-intensive farming activities like harvesting.

Consequently, one type of mechanical equipment that has grown rapidly in popularity is Combine Harvesters. It is a technology that combines harvesting, threshing, cleaning, and in some instances, bagging, in one operation. One series of surveys in the TKR showed that use of Combine Harvesters increased rapidly between 1996 and 2006 (from preliminary field study). Fully mechanized harvesting systems have replaced the conventional systems using human labor with sickles in harvesting operations in TKR. The main advantage of mechanizes harvesting systems are reducing the production costs and improving labor efficiency. However, operating the combine harvesting machines has great potential to cause negative impacts to economic of farmers, especially social impacts.