Application of a non-parametric method to analyze energy consumption for orange production

Due to good climate condition and large cultivation area in Mazandaran province of Iran, orchard commodities products, especially orange production is widely improved in this region.  In this study, Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) technique was used to analyze the efficiency of farmers, discriminate efficient orchards from inefficient ones and to identify wasteful uses of energy for orange producers in Sari region.  Data were collected using face-to-face surveys from 86 orange orchardists and included the human power, machinery, diesel fuel, chemicals, fertilizer, farmyard manure, water for irrigation and electricity input sources used per hectare of orange production.  The data was organized and analyzed by DEA Techniques.  The results revealed that the total input and output energy were 54.2 and 59.2 GJ/ha, respectively.  Diesel fuel, fertilizer and water for irrigation energies had the highest energy values per hectare respectively.  Pure technical and scale efficiencies were calculated using CCR (Charnes–Cooper–Rhodes) and BCC (Banker-Charnes-Cooper) models.  The technical, pure technical and scale efficiencies were calculated as 0.92, 0.96 and 0.97, respectively.  The highest contribution to the total saving energy was provided by diesel fuel followed by fertilizer and water for irrigation energy input.   Keywords: technical efficiency, energy saving, data envelopment Analysis, orange production, Sar

Reliability analysis of agricultural machinery: A case study of sugarcane chopper harvester

the performance of agricultural machines depends on the reliability of the machinery used, the operating environment, the maintenance efficiency, the operating process, the technical expertise of the farmers and etc. As the size and complexity of farm equipment continue to increase, the implications of equipment failure become over more critical. Therefore, reliability analysis is required to identify the bottlenecks in the system and to find the components or subsystems with low reliability for a given designed performance. It is important to select a suitable method for data collection as well as for reliability analysis. This paper presents a case study describing reliability and availability analysis of the sugarcane 7000 series chopper harvester at Hakim Farabi agro- industry in Iran. In this study, the harvester is divided into nine subsystems. The parameters of some probability distributions, such as weibull, exponential and lognormal distributions have been estimated by using ReliaSoft Weibull++6 software. The results of the analysis show that feed rollers and hydraulic subsystems are critical from a reliability point of view, and the wheels subsystem and hydraulic subsystem are critical from an availability point of view. The study also shows that the reliability analysis is very useful for deciding maintenance intervals

Monitoring and Estimating Sugarcane Losses during Harvesting Using Sound Analysis

Mechanical harvesting of sugarcane is done in two ways: green and burnt, and usually burnt harvest has between 25-50% less losses. When harvesting sugarcane, the sound of sugarcane pieces hitting the wall of the primary extractor hood can clearly be heard. Accordingly, it was decided to use the audio system to determine the relationship between these sounds and the losses of the primary extractor. To record sounds in the basic extractor, two models of full-directional and one-way capacitive microphone (cardioid) and Cool Record Edit Deluxe and Audacity software were used. To detect the wavelength of the sounds caused by the collision of different parts of sugarcane with the hood cap and extractor blades by throwing a large volume of straw along with 25 cm pieces of sugarcane billets, a sound record was set. A camera was also installed there to record the video of what was happening under the extractor compartment. The results showed that the one-way capacitive microphone installed in the upper part of the primary extractor housing received clearer sounds. Analyzing the recorded sounds and comparing them with the images obtained from the camera under the primary extractor revealed that the audio loss detection system detects the losses in the primary extractor with an accuracy of about 75 to 80%. The loss rate at 1200 rpm was about 1.5 times higher than the loss rate at 1100 rpm

Failure rate analysis of four agricultural tractor models in southern Iran

Tractors play an important role in agricultural mechanization.  A repairable mechanical system (as agricultural tractor) is prone to deterioration or repeated failures.  In this study, the owners of three hundred tractors, which include Massey Ferguson (MF285 model and MF399 model), John Deere (JD3140 model) and Universal (U650 model), were interviewed, from five regions of Khouzestan Province.  A regression model was used to predict the tractors failure rate.  The machine failure pattern was carefully studied and key factors affecting the failure rate were identified in these regions.  The data obtained from farm records valid by using questionnaire was separated into two groups according to how those tractors were stored.  Results showed that the majority of recorded failures were observed in the electrical system for all tractors.  According to the results of the research, different storage policies significantly affected the failure rate for MF285, MF399 and JD3140 tractors (63%, 55.5% and 61.6% respectively), whereas inside storage of U650 tractors slightly decreased the failure rate (7.4%).  Also, closed storage condition was found to reduce annual repair and maintenance costs by 33.6%, 33.6%, 29.6% and 2.56% in comparison with open air storage condition for the study tractors respectively.  The observational estimate showed that all tractors were in the wear out period under outside storage conditions, against inside storage had a considerable effect on the failure rate of MF285, MF399 tractors and they were commonly in a randomized breakdown period within their useful life, JD3140 tractors were in the beginning of wear out period, but U650 tractors were in the wear out period for both storage conditions.  Therefore, it can be said that by storing the tractors out of the weather conditions slowly exposed by failure and breakdowns, especially in warm climate and presented of dust haze phenomenon.   Keywords: failure rate, tractor, storage condition, Khouzesta

EFFECT OF VARIOUS INPUTS ON PADDY PRODUCTION - A COMPARISON OF ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORKS AND LINEAR REGRESSION ANALYSIS

We analyzed the effect of chemical fertilizer, seed, biocide, farm machinery and labor hours on production of paddy (paddy rice) in the Khuzestan province in the South Western part of Iran. Here we test two methods (linear regression and neural network). We conclude that the results gotten by neural network with no hidden layer and linear regression are closed to each other. We insist that for a data set of this type the regression analysis yields more reliable results compared to a neural network. They suggest that machinery has a very clear positive effect on yield while fertilizer and labor doesn't affect on it. One can say that there is no necessity that increasing the amount of some "useful input" increase paddy production

Corresponding Author The Evaluation of wheat losses harvesting in two conventional combine (John Deere 1165, 955) in Iran

ABSTRACT Wheat is one of the most important food staff in consumption pattern of each country. More than 50 percent of energy is provided by bread in the developing countries. The aim of this study was measuring wheat losses during pre-harvest and harvest stages in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province of Iran in year 2013. Wheat losses at harvest stages were measured to wheat varieties in 2 levels of Omid and Alvand were chosen and Combine types in 2 levels: JD 955 and JD 1165 while were chosen. The data analyzed using and means were compared using SAS Software's and Duncan's Multiple Range Tests were. The results showed that higher amount of losses were in the Omid variety and JD 955 with totally 6.83 % (307.4 kg ha-1) that 10.5 % of them attributed on the cleaning, 34 % on Header, 16.5 % on Drum, 21 % on impurity and 18% broken grain losses. The lowest losses related to JD 1165 and Alvand variety with 3.97 % (178.66 kg ha-1) that 10 % of them attributed on the cleaning, 38 % on Header, 13 % on Drum , 22 % on impurity and 17% broken grain losses. Also, average pre-harvest losses amount was in all fields the study 24.5 kg ha-1 that 9.8 % of total losses represent the measured total losses Alvand 20.5 kg ha-1 and the variety of Omid 28.5 kg ha-1 respectively

Influence of the nozzle type, air-assisted velocity, and wind velocity on the measurements of spray drift potential of boom sprayers

Spraying is a major operation to control the bio-elements that are harmful to farming products. Reduction in nozzle drift can be considered as one of the main factors in preventing the risk of environmental pollution because of using pesticides. For this aim, three types of air-assisted nozzles, namely, air-liquid-air(ALA), liquid-air(LA), liquid-air-liquid(LAL), and at four levels of air-assisted velocity (0, 2, 4, and 7.5 m/s-1)were used;  They were also examined at four levels of wind velocity (0, 2, 3, and 4 m/s-1).A spectrophotometry device, MATLAB, SAS 9.1, and IBM SPSS statistical software were used for measurement. The results showed that the effects of the nozzle type, air-assisted velocity, and wind velocity on the drift, deposition, unified spraying, volume median Diameters of 50% and 90%, and spraying quality indicators were significant (a<=0.01 ). Also in regression studies, among the three effective factors (nozzle type, air-assisted velocity, wind velocity), the nozzle type with the highest coefficient of 0.62, 0.74, 0.277, and 0.144, respectively, the most effective factor on the drift, the amount of the deposition and volume 50 and 90 percent media diameter were identified