Harvest Loss Tray – All You Need To Know
What is Harvest loss tray?
Every year, a certain percentage of the crops that are planted never make it to the table. When a combine harvester is used to harvest crops, the grains that are not collected in the machine’s grain tank fall to the ground and are left behind. This is known as harvest loss, and it can be caused by a variety of factors, including pests, disease, and bad weather, but more than 10% of crop can be lost during the process of harvesting.
The amount of harvest loss varies depending on the crop, type of combine harvester, and conditions during harvesting. You can also learn about other loss factors apart from machine loss “Preharvest Interval and Best Postharvest Management”.
While it is impossible to eliminate all harvest loss, there are steps that we can take to reduce it by adjusting the best possible harvester’s setup. In this article, we will discuss what harvest loss try is, how we measure harvest loss, so that the loss can be minimized to its lowest level.
One way to reduce harvest loss is to use a metal tray that attaches to the harvester and collects the grains that fall to the ground. The tray can be emptied after every pass of the harvester or when it is full. Harvest loss trays are available for many types of combine harvesters.
How does the harvest loss tray work?
Harvest loss tray is a tray which is made up of metal which is attached under the harvester using the electromagnets. These electromagnets can be turned off by the help of a remote. But now this harvest loss tray can also be dropped by the help of a mobile app and can be tracked using a mobile phone to find the tray in the field.
As soon as the harvest tray drops in the field it collects the sample and grain along with it. This sample can be collected from the harvest loss tray.
The harvest tray has a battery attached to it which can be recharged. The battery gives signals upon having low recharge.
The harvest loss tray can be found in different sizes depending upon its use. The size can range from between 20″-60″. These trays can be used depending upon the conditions such as the 40″ tray can be used in the high stubble field to collect samples of different crops.
In the case of 60″ the tray can be used for sampling and combined calibration. This tray size is great to use for the width of the sieves while dropping straw and chaff in a windrow.
How to do measure harvest loss:
Once you have attached the harvest loss tray under the axle of the harvester then drop the pan using the remote or the app. The sampling present in the pan tray would consist of straws, grains, and chaff.
Then collect the sample and separate the straws and chaffs from the grains of the crop. This can be done by hand but it is a very inefficient procedure, because it can take from 15-30 mins just to clean the sample.
Or the best and most effective way to get your clean sample is to use the air separator. It is a small tank-like equipment which is very easy to use and can separate the grains from the waste material within 30 seconds to 1 minute.
The air blows out the straws and chaff leaving the grains behind. Collect the grains from the air separator and measure their weight. You should also know some more information regarding the machinery you are using such as drop pan width (m), drop pan length (m), harvester’s front width, how far your harvester is spreading the residues (take a estimate), grams of grain caught in a tray and crop yield.
These values should be replaced with highlighted values given below in the excel sheet. Then by just clicking on the loose as a percentage of yield you would be able to get the value, aim is get percentage below 1.
Click on one of the respective options according to your option such as chaff spread, narrow wind mode, chaff cart or chaff deck.
Advantages of using harvest loss tray:
Use of the harvest loss tray has various uses. During the harvest the loss can be determined using the harvest loss tray quite easily.
By correcting the harvester setting these losses can be corrected. The harvest loss from 10% can be reduced by less than 1%. If we compare this corrective percentage on a larger scale a farmer would be able to recover thousands of dollars.
Although it seems like this gadget is simple to look at and easy to use, the value it can bring to the farmers’ revenue is way more bigger than you would imagine.
Harvest loss tray can be used for various crops and minimize the loss. It can be used in cereals, canola, sunflower, hemp and corn fields.
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