SILVA, José Geraldo da.; SILVEIRA, Pedro Marques da.; STONE, Luís Fernando.
Resumen:
Due to problems usually encountered during harvest of common bean related to the crop
itself as well as to inadequate equipment performance, mechanization has been used more intensively
during plant gathering and treshing, after manual harvest is completed. Plant mechanical cutting is a
recent practice still being disseminated among producers. The objective of this work was to evaluate the
efficiency of mechanical harvesting using a plant cutting device at different dates and day periods,
measuring harvest losses during mechanical plant gathering and treshing. The trial was conducted at
Embrapa Arroz e Feijão, in Santo Antonio de Goiás, GO. Bean seeds from cultivars Perola and Valente
were directly seeded using a five line planting and fertilizing equipment. At harvest time it were used a
Ceiflex cutting and gathering device and a Double Master gathering and tresher machine. Experimental
design was a completely randomized block with four replications. Treatments corresponded to plant
cutting at different periods: (a) Sept 11 from 3 to 4 PM; (b) Sept 11 from 8 to 9 AM; (c) Sept 15, from
8 to 9 AM; and (d) Sept 15, from 3 to 4 PM. Double Master operated immediately after application of
treatment (d). For both bean cultivars plants were cut at similar height, 28 mm in average. When the
Ceiflex device was used to cut the plants grain loss was affected both by harvesting date and period of
the day as well as by cultivar. Total grain loss, caused by both Ceiflex and Double Master was greater
when the cutting operation was performed at later plant stages when grain moisture content was
reduced.
