Research of bending cabbage plants before machine harvesting

Abstract

The known cabbage harvesting machines do not always produce high-quality products. Often, the quality of the cutoff of cabbage heads does not meet the agrotechnical requirements. It has been found that a significant obstacle to the high-quality cutting of cabbage heads by the cutting device of a cabbage harvester is the deviation of cabbage plants from the axis of the row. In this regard, it is necessary to provide for the alignment of cabbage plants before cutting relative to the axis of the row by bending in the cutting devices of cabbage harvesters. This process is experimentally investigated in relation to machine harvesting of cabbage. In the experiments, the device designed at the Saint Petersburg State Agricultural University was used. It was intended for the study of the process of cutting plant material and updated for the solution of this problem. The conditions under which the research was conducted were typical for most cabbage growing areas. It was found that the moment of resistance of cabbage plants to bending at the initial stage increased intensively in proportion to the angle of bending, and then (at bending angles from 20° to 30°) its intensity decreased. However, cabbage plants maintained their stability at bending angles γ up to 30…35°. Such a bend may be used if cabbage plants with stump length of l = 140...200 mm deviate from the planting site of the cabbage plant less than 10 cm from the axis of the row. A further increase in the deviation of the cabbage planting site from the axis of the row is not possible both because of the loss of their stability and because the angle of inclination of the stump cut exceeds the permissible value of 30°.