Quality of mechanized coffee harvesting in circular planting system

Abstract

Mechanized coffee harvesting is one of the main technological advances that benefit producers, but problems with planning for planting and crop development and faults in harvester adjustment can reduce the efficiency of the operation, making it more stressful for the crop than manual harvesting. Thus the present study was carried out in the municipality of Patos de Minas, MG, Brazil with the objective of assessing the damage in the vegetable part and the quality of the mechanized harvesting of coffee cropped in a circular planting system under a center pivot, with two rod vibration frequencies and statistical control of the process. It was observed that the negative biennially on the crop reduced the initial coffee load eliminating the effects of the insolation conditions. The harvest quality indices were distributed asymmetrically and the samples varied greatly and only the stripping efficiency was influenced by the axles assessed and were shown to be stable by the statistical control. The damage to the plants by the harvester presented desirable values and did not vary in function of the factors analyzed, but was considered under statistical control.