UNIVERSITY OF DAR ES SALAAM

College of Agriculture and Food

AM 311: AGRICULTURAL MACHINERY MANAGEMENT

Pre requisite: Non

1. Quiz 3% marks
2. Individual Assignment 10% marks
3. Test 27% marks
4. University examination 60% marks
COURSE CONTENTS
Machinery Management: Machinery costs – ownership costs, operating costs,
and timeliness costs; machinery selection and replacement.
Optimization: optimum use of machine, estimation of power for a machine,
part load operation, break even point, linear programming.
Hay and Forage harvesting: Mechanics of cutting plants; mowers; mover
conditioners, balers; impact cutting; curing and preservation of forage; wind
rowing.
Grain harvesting: Introduction, methods and equipment, reaper and
windrowing; types of threshers, threshing cylinders, threshing losses, combine
harvesting: types of cutting heads and tracks for different crops (wheat, rice,
maize, sunflower), functional processes – gathering, cutting, pickup, feeding,
threshing, separation, cleaning; combine losses and adjustments, performance
evaluations.
Special crop machines: Cotton harvester; maize harvester; sugarcane harvester;
potato harvester
REFERENCE AND REEDINGS
1. Hunt, D. 2003. Farm Power and Machinery Management. Iowa State
University Press,
Ames, Iowa, USA.
2. Ajit K. Srivastava, Carroll E. Goering, Roger P. Rohrbach, and Dennis
R. Buckmaster, Engineering Principles of Agricultural Machines, Second
Edition. 2013.
3. Kepner, R. A., R. Bainer,and E.L. Barger. 2000 Principles of Farm
Machinery, John
Willey and sons, N.Y
4. Suresh, R. and S. Kumar. 2004. Farm power and machinery engineering.
Standard
Publishers, New Delhi, India
5. Klenin Popov & Sakun, 1995. Agricultural Machines. Kolos Publishers
Moscow, U.S.
S.R.
REFERENCE AND REEDINGS
6. American Association for Vocational Instructional Materials, (1981) Safe
Tractor
Operation and Daily Care. Athens, Georgia: Engineering Center.
7. Smith, H. P. 2010. Farm Machinery and Equipment. Publisher: Style Press
8. Kay, R., Edwards, W. and Duffy P. 2011. Farm Management. Publisher:
McGraw-Hill
9. Herbst, J.H. (1980) Farm Management: Principles, Budgets, Plans, Stripes
Champaign,
Illinois: Publishing Co.
10. Luening, Robert A. and Mortenson, William P., (1979) The Farm
Management
Handbook .Danville, Illinois: The Interstate Printers and Publishers.
INTRODUCTION
Good management of farm field machines is a substantial portion of a farm’s
economic success. It includes understanding the mechanical principles and
limitations of each machine, efficient operations in the field, appropriate
machine maintenance, timely repair and replacement, and selection of a machine
system.
This requires an economic analysis of the actual or proposed management
activities. This section presents simplified mathematical and economic concepts
designed to be applied by on-farm managers to the problems in machinery
management.
INTRODUCTION
Field patterns
Efficient field patterns are a responsibility of the machinery
manager. Acceptable patterns depend on the field boundaries
and the maneuverability of the self-propelled machine or the
tractor–implement combination.
Field patterns are identified by the type of implement turns
required and do not depend on the shape of the field. Any
decision that can produce a field pattern having a minimum
number of unproductive turns is ideal.
The field patterns are classified as either circuitous or
headlands pattern.
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Economic performance of agricultural machine
Optimum farm machinery management it said to have occurred when the
economic performance of whole machine is maximized.
Economic performance machine system measured in monetary value per unit
of out put. For example; Tsh 30,000 machinery cost per tonne of maize
produced. Tsh 500 per litre of milk sold, etc.
The three main components of economic performance (EP) are: Machine
performance (MP), power performance (PP) and labor performance (LP).
Thus economic performance is calculated as;
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Example:
A machine system produces 2000 kg of produce per hour at cost of Tsh 400
requiring 2 persons per hour and 1.5 tractor-hours casting Tsh. 1000 and 2000
per hour respectively. What is the economic performance of the machine
operation?
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Machine performance
A measure of agricultural machine performance are the rate and quality with
which the operations are accomplished. Rate (quantity per unit of time) is an
important in agriculture because few industries require such timely operation
as agriculture.
A rate of machine performance in terms of quantity per unit time (ha/h),
tons/h. such figures are approximately called machine capacity.
Machine capacity comprises of field capacity-area covered per unit time
(ha/h), material capacity-material harvested per unit time (t/h) and throughput
capacity-material handled (t/h).
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Field capacity
Field capacity refers to the amount of processing that a machine can accomplish
per hour of time. Field capacity can be expressed on a material or area basis.
On an area basis it is expressed as
1

On the material basis it is expressed as

2
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Where
Ca = Field capacity, area based (ha/h),
Cm = field capacity, material base (Kg/h),
v = travel speed, km/h,
w = machine working width, m,
Y = crop yield, Mg/ha,
f = field efficiency
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The term theoretical field capacity is used to describe the field capacity when
the field efficiency is equal to 1.0. i.e., theoretical field capacity is achieved
when the machine is using 100% of its width without interruption for turns or
other idle time.
For cultivators and other machines that work in rows, the machine working
width is equal to the row spacing times the number of rows processed in each
pass.
For a given C , W, and Y, Equation 2 could be used with  = 1.0 to find the
mt f
allowable forward speed.
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Field efficiency
The theoretical time,  , required to perform a given field operation varies
t
inversely with the theoretical field capacity. It can be calculated using the
following equation:

, ha/h
, ha
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The actual time required to perform the operation will be increased due to
overlap, turning on the ends of the field, loading or unloading materials,
breakdown, adjustment and lubricating.
Such time losses lower the field efficiency below 100%.
The time required for machine preparation at farm shed, travel to and from the
field, machine preparation in the field before starting work, operators personal
time and maintenance are not included in calculating actual field capacity.
Factors affecting field efficiency includes theoretical field capacity, machine
maneuverability, field pattern, field size, yield, soil and crop condition and
system limitations.
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Therefore, the actual field efficiency will be calculated using the formula
below.

For field efficiency, field speed , and repair and maintenance cost parameters
refer (Ajit K. Srivastava 2013a)
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Also you can calculate field efficiency from theoretical and actual field
capacities.
Thus: Efficiency
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Example
A self-propelled combine with a 12-row corn head for 75 cm row spacing
travels at 5 km/h while harvesting corn yielding 12 Mg/ha. Losses proportional
to area total to 5.2 minutes per hectare and are primarily due to unloading grain
from the combine. Neglecting any other losses, calculate (a) the field efficiency
and the field capacity on (b) an area basis and (c) material basis.
a=5.2 minutes, h=0,
Kw=0 because row crop header uses full width, e=t
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Tutorial question
1. A 5 m width-of-cut combine harvester moves with a forward
speed of 1.5 m/s. 50 kg of material where collected per minute
and 60 kg of material discharged out per minute. Calculate: Field
capacity, Material capacity and Throughput capacity.