DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AN INDIGENOUS YIELD MONITOR FOR GRAIN COMBINE HARVESTER

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Date
2011
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Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana
Abstract
The rice-wheat rotation has led to an agrarian crisis in Punjab in terms of depleted aquifers, soil toxicity and salinity and over exploitation of natural resources. To preserve the natural resources and soil fertility, Precision farming is the need of hour and yield monitor is a logical first and important development in precision farming & agricultural machinery that allows farmers to assess the yield variability within the field during harvesting of crop. Although in advanced countries, high HP combines for large farms are available with yield monitors fitted as standard equipment or installed separately and the sensors & systems used for yield monitor are usually designed for those high HP combines and are very costly. However, these systems and sensors are difficult to install on small indigenous combines directly due to design constraint. So, to spread the use of yield monitoring combines in India, it was necessary to develop an original yield monitoring technique for indigenous combines. For development of indigenous yield monitor, components such as Auxiliary tank, Single point parallel type load cell and Inductive proximity sensor were identified; Micro-controller 8051 with Display unit was selected to process the yield data. Indigenous yield monitor was developed by assembling the designed and selected components on combine harvester. The present yield monitor was evaluated for rice crop at two levels of monitoring i.e. discrete & continuous type and three levels of forward speed i.e. 2.0, 3.0 and 4.5 km/h. The mean value of yield 4609.5 kg/ha with S.D 2116.7 kg/ha having C.V 45.3% with discrete type of monitoring and mean value of yield 5513.7 kg/ha with S.D 3337.7 kg/ha having C.V 60.6% with continuous type of monitoring was calculated at three forward speeds. The lag time was observed 12.6, 13.1 and 12.4 seconds at forward speed of 2.0, 3.0 and 4.5 km/h respectively. An average error 6.03% was observed in the measurement of yield by using indigenous yield monitor. Yield monitor, combine harvester, Global Positioning System (GPS), Geographical Information System (GIS) and yield variability
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