Economics of different harvesting techniques of wheat in rice-wheat cropping pattern of Punjab, Pakistan

The field survey was conducted after harvesting of wheat crop 2017 with the objective to estimate economics of different harvesting techniques of wheat. District Gujranwala in rice-wheat cropping pattern of Punjab, Pakistan was selected as population of research study due to more farm mechanization. Twenty one male farmers from each tehsil making a total of 84 respondent farmers were interviewed by convenience sampling method. It was recorded that 55 percent farmers were using wheat thresher to separate grains from chaff after using either reaper (31%) or manual cutting (24%). While 65 percent farmers were employing combine harvester and 37 percent farmers were using wheat straw chopper for making chaff and saving the organic matter of soil by avoiding burning of stubbles. Net benefit for manual cutting then threshing with thresher, reaper cutting then threshing with thresher and combine harvester cutting then chopping with wheat straw chopper was Rs. 69621 ha-1, Rs. 71706 ha-1 and Rs. 76530 ha-1 respectively. As for as chaff recovery was concerned grain to chaff ratio was almost 1:1 for manual cutting and threshing method, 1:0.85 for reaper cutting and threshing method while 1:0.57 for combine harvester cutting and wheat straw chopping was calculated. The method of combine harvesting followed by wheat straw chopper should be preferred for saving precious time for sowing subsequent crops and to overcome the wastage due to rains. Wheat straw chopper is a profitable technology and the cost of this machine needs to be reduced to make it affordable and available to all farmers.