Technical and economical analysis of harvesting and ensilaging of corn grain
¹Institute of Technology and Life Sciences in Falenty, Warsaw Branch, Warsaw, Poland 2Department of Production Engineering, Warsaw Agricultural University – SGGW, Warsaw, Poland 3Latvia University of Agriculture, Research Institute of Agricultural Machinery, Ulbroka, Latvia; *Correspondence: semjons@apollo.lv
Abstract:
Elaborated test results concerning two technologies of corn grain harvesting using grain harvesters. One technology called ZKP was using a mill crusher unit with direct filling system of a plastic bag and the other one was using a mill crusher connected to a silo press and was called ZKG. Provided research and calculations enabled evaluation of the values of critical coefficients, which were the following: unitary fuel consumption and unitary labour cost requirement. Because of different corn grain yields, these values referred to a unitary area of crop and also unitary mass of corn grain. It has been proved that the total costs of harvesting and conservation of corn grain with the technology ZKP equalled 321.83 € ha-1, but the same costs with the technology ZKG equalled 245.69 € ha-1. However, when taking into consideration the unitary mass of harvested grain, lower costs appeared with the technology ZKP at the value 21.89 € t–1 compared to the 31.02 € t–1 for the technology ZKG.
Key words:
costs, fuel consumption, grain ensilaging, harvesting, harvesting technology, labor, maize, plastic bag, transportation