Evaluation of combine harvester operation costs in different working conditions

Abstract

Combine harvesters have a very important task in grain crop harvesting. Combine harvesters must fulfil lot of technological requirements regarding the field conditions, crop type, as well as the quality performance and optimal costs. The problem is that it is the main harvesting technology of cereals in the world and it has seasonal character of work, which has to be done in a relatively short period of time with adequate costs. The aim of this paper is an evaluation of the economic parameters of combine harvesters in different working conditions. The study is based on exact cost analysis of combine harvesters of New Holland brand by different ages and different concepts of threshing. Data were collected during all working seasons of the combine. In average, there is a data set from 10 seasons. In evaluation there were 9 machines NH CR 9080 and another 9 machines NH CX 8080. The working parameters evaluated are fuel consumption and operational costs. Performance of the machines was measured as harvested per hectare per day and per whole season. Costs are calculated as fixed and variable. The maintenance and service costs, and fuel consumption per hectare harvested are deeply analyzed. The result shows that the effect of the cost analysis depends on the terms of annual performance of the machine. There is 2.1 l per hectare difference in the fuel consumption between tangential and axial threshing systems. A special result of this study is evidence of the spare part costs for every machine and setting up the individual coefficient of repairs.