Adaptation of Mini Rice Combine for Wetland Rice Fields
Eulito U. Bautista1, Phan Hieu Hien2 and Alfred Andrew Schmidley3
ABSTRACT
A minicombine to harvest, thresh and bag rice was adapted from a Chinese model to improve production efficiency, reduce costs, and minimize losses. Improvements were incorporated for better output purity, use of paddy bags, better ability on wet fields, and comfortable operation. Tests proved the suitability of the improved minicombine at 0.5-1.0 ha/d with grain loss of 1-3% and its reliability under actual conditions. Based on economic analysis with initial adaptors, it is more beneficial to use compared with prevailing practices. Further improvements are on-going to improve its suitability for wet conditions while commercialization has started in the Philippines and Vietnam.
Keywords: Rice, harvesting, combine, adaptation, performance test, durability, economic analysis, commercialization
1Chief Science Research Specialist, Philippine Rice Research Institute, Muños, Nueva Ecija, Philippines. E-mail: [email protected] ; 2Director, Center for Agricultural Energy and Machinery, Nong-Lam University, HoChi Minh City, Vietnam; 3Director, Business Development Program, Briggs & Stratton East Asia International, Shanghai, China.