Development of Powered Disk Type Sugar Cane Stubble Saver
Abstract: The objective of
this research was to design, fabricate and test a prototype of sugar cane
stubble saver based on powered disk mechanism. In this research, a heavy duty
disk plow or disk harrow was used as a rotating knife to cut the sugarcane
stubble. The parabolic disk was chosen because it is proven reliable as soil
working tools and it is available in the market as spare part of disk plow or
disk harrow unit. The prototype was mounted on the four wheel tractor’s three
point hitch, and powered by PTO of the tractor. Two kinds of disks were used in
these experiments, those were disk with regular edge or plain disk and disk
with scalloped edge or scalloped disk. Both disks had diameter of 28 inch.
Results of feld test showed that powered disk mechanism could satisfy cut sugar
cane’s stubble. However, scalloped disk type gave smoother stubble cuts
compared to that of plain disk. Plain disk type gave broken stubble cut. Higher
rotation (1000 rpm) resulted better cuts as compared to lower rotation (500
rpm) both either on plain disk and scalloped disk. The developed prototype
could work below the soil surface at depth of 5 to 10 cm. With tilt angle
setting 20O and disk angle 45O the width of cut was about 25 cm.
Author: Radite P.A.S dan I
Nengah Suastawa
Journal Code: jppertaniandd090107