Lipkovich I.E., Lukhanin V.A., Egorova I.V., Petrenko N.V., Pjatikopov S.M.

Increasing the efficiency of harvesting sunflower seeds with test results of the mounted harvesting adapter PRP-12

Sunflower is the most widespread oilseed crop in the Russian Federation; most of its harvest is used to produce sunflower oil. One of the most labor-intensive technological processes in sunflower cultivation technology is harvesting, this is due to the use of a large amount of specialized equipment that needs to be maintained and operated. It is important to harvest sunflowers at the optimal time, i.e. when the seed moisture content is 12-14%, harvesting at a later date can lead to self-shedding of the seeds. However, cleaning at the optimal time cannot guarantee a high percentage of loss reduction, since losses behind the harvesting unit also make their own adjustments. According to agricultural requirements, the total losses behind the grain harvesting unit should not exceed 3%, however, in the test reports of grain harvesters, these figures are much higher. To reduce losses behind grain harvesters, promising directions are to reduce losses behind the reaping part and the threshing-separating device of the grain harvesting unit. The paper presents the results of field tests of the sunflower harvesting device PRP-12.

Keywords: SEED HARVESTING, SUNFLOWER, MOUNTED HARVEST ADAPTER, COMBINE HARVESTER, SOIL, EQUIPMENT, TECHNOLOGICAL PROCESS