A New Concept in Iranian Lentil Harvesting

Lentil is only hand harvested in Iran and other developing countries which requires about 300 labour-hour for harvesting of one hectare. In developed countries such as Canada and Germany farmers use tall varieties and harvest them by grain harvesters with special adjustments. Harvesting of Iranian lentil by grain harvester is impossible because of its short stem and high cutter bar losses. About 225000 hectares is planted for lentil in Iran which requires a lot of human energy for harvesting and there is about 15% of total yield loss. In this study methods of lentil harvesting in Iran were investigated and different aspects including technical characteristics of present machines and agricultural conditions were considered and a suitable design was recommended for many of these conditions. After development and construction of first prototype machine، some experimental tests were conducted. After many observations including cinematic analysis، the machine was modified. Finally، in order to check its performance via percentage loss، field experiments using completely randomized design were conducted. Treatments of front roller radius، peripheral velocity of front roller، forward speed of machine were used separately for each experiment. Results showed that the effect of front roller radius and cinematic index on loss percent were significant in %1 probability level. In conclusion، the best condition for a front roller was to have a radius of 15 cm with a cinematic index of 3. 22 which showed a crop loss of about 4%.