A Mulching Machine for Strawberry Raised Beds Sterilization | ||
| Journal of Soil Sciences and Agricultural Engineering | ||
| Article 10, Volume 8, Issue 12, December 2017, Pages 723-731 PDF (769.53 K) | ||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||
| DOI: 10.21608/jssae.2017.38239 | ||
| Author | ||
| T. Mohamed | ||
| Agric. Eng. Research Institute (AEnRI), Dokki, Giza, Egypt | ||
| Abstract | ||
| A mulching machine was designed and manufactured to suit different dimensions of strawberry raised beds in Egypt in agriculture. The machine was used to cover the raised beds with plastic films and lay the GR irrigation pipes at the same time before dosing fumigant (Chloropicrin (CH3Br)) in the irrigation pipes network. The machine was tested in loamy sand soil at different forward speeds with different soil cutting depth, turn over angle, kick out angles, and skimmer angle. The results indicated that, the optimum cutting depth of the soil was 10 cm, the optimum skimmer turn over angle was 120o, the optimum kick out angle was (30-40) o, and the optimum skimmer angle was 40o when working at speeds of 1.5 km/h. The mulching efficiency 14ηm"> was reached upto100%, 100%, 80%, and 45% at tractor forward speed of 1, 1.5, 2.10, and 2.5km/h respectively. On the other hand, the machine field capacity at the optimum tractor forward speed of (1.5 km/h) was 0.43 feddan/h, and 0.54 feddan/h with laying new GR pipes, and without laying GR pipes respectively. Meanwhile, the manual mulching was 1 feddan/day with mulching crew of nine workers. The specific energy at the effective field capacity was 19.95kW.h /feddan with laying new GR pipes and reached to 15.89 kW.h /feddan without laying new GR pipes. The total fabrication cost of the mulch machine was 30000 LE with 2017 price level. The total cost of operating the machine and the tractor was178.4 LE/h. The cost of mulching for one feddan was 330.4 LE without laying new GR pipes and 414.9 LE with laying new GR pipes comparing to 900LE/feddan for manual mulching .The reasonable rental price for the machine with narrow tires tractor was 400 LE/feddan and 500 LE/feddan that indicated (NPV) of 9890 LE and 9844 LE at 14 % interest rate without laying new GR pipes and with laying new GR pipes respectively. Also, the mulch machine payback period (PBP) was about 1.4 year with laying and without laying new GR pipes. | ||
| Keywords | ||
| Chloropicrin; fumigation; Raised bed mulching machine; strawberry | ||
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