African Journal of
Agricultural Research

  • Abbreviation: Afr. J. Agric. Res.
  • Language: English
  • ISSN: 1991-637X
  • DOI: 10.5897/AJAR
  • Start Year: 2006
  • Published Articles: 6915

Full Length Research Paper

Quality of mechanized peanut digging in function of the auto guidance

Santos A. F.
  • Santos A. F.
  • Department of Rural Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
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Kazama E. H.
  • Kazama E. H.
  • Department of Rural Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
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Ormond A. T. S.
  • Ormond A. T. S.
  • Department of Rural Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
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Tavares T. O.
  • Tavares T. O.
  • Department of Rural Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
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Silva R. P.
  • Silva R. P.
  • Department of Rural Engineering, São Paulo State University (UNESP), School of Agricultural and Veterinarian Sciences, Jaboticabal, Brazil.
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  •  Received: 15 July 2016
  •  Accepted: 29 September 2016
  •  Published: 01 December 2016

Abstract

Within the context of precision agriculture, the use of automatic guidance is without a doubt one of the most popular tools among farmers, however, are few producers of peanuts using this technology, the benefits from this technology can bring significant gains for culture even more when thinking about reducing the indices of losses in the digging. Thus, it objective was to evaluate the variability of quantitative losses of peanut mechanized digging with use the autopilot, using the Statistical Process Control. The treatments consisted of absence of autopilot use in sowing and digging, pilot's absence at sowing and presence in the digging, pilot use at sowing and absence in the digging and the pilot use in sowing and digging. In each treatment, 15 points of each variable was collected from distance of 50 m apart. Visible, invisible and total losses in the digging and parallelism were evaluated. The reduction of the plant material on the vibratory mat affected the levels of visible losses. Total losses are strongly correlated with the invisible losses. The use of the autopilot allows the operator to pay more attention to the digging operation improving the quality of the operation. The average error found between passes of the mechanized set using autopilot was 0.35 m. The variability of the losses as well as of parallelism was reduced when using the autopilot in two operations, providing a higher quality process.

 

Key words: RTK (Real Time Kinematic), automatic guidance, precision agriculture, statistical process control.