Agriculture has straight and indirect contribution to boost the economy of Pakistan.wheat and paddy are among the\nmajor rotational crops of Pakistan. The straw management in combine harvested in wheat fields is a major problem. In the\npast the residual wheat straw in convectional harvesting was burnt in the field which resulted lossesof 80% of Nitrogen, 25%\nP, 21% K and 4% to 60% S.To overcome this problem, locally available wheat straw chopper is used for cutting and\ncollecting the wheat straw left behind the combine harvesters. These locally developedwheat straw choppers are heavy in\nweight having lowermachine efficiency. A wheat straw chopper has beenmodified using locally available materials making it\nlight weight and more efficient. The performance evaluation of wheat straw chopper has been carried out in the field and\nfurther improvements have been incorporated to increase its field efficiency. The modified wheat straw chopper has been\ntested for its performance at Chakra Farms of the University of Agriculture, Faisalabad during the wheat harvesting season.\nThe experiment was consisted of factorial completely randomized design. Three wheat varieties V1 (Sehar-2006), V2 (Lasani)\nand V3 (Faisalabad-2008) were selected in which modified wheat straw chopper was operated at two different tractor forward\nspeeds S1 (1.77 km/h) and S2(2.42 km/h) and at two different levels of moisture contents M1(moisture at the same day of\ncombining), M2(moisture after one day of combining). Results showed that wheat straw yield (kg ha-1) for V1, V2 and V3\nwas found to be 1425, 1118 and 1179 kg/ha respectively. Effect of moisture on wheat straw yield (kg/ha) was found to be\nsignificant, and higher wheat straw yield (kg/ha) was found to be at moisture content level M1.The wheat straw yield and\nefficiency of the wheat straw chopper was found to be higher at S1(1.77 km/h) which is for wheat variety V1 and 67.96%\nrespectively.The average fuel consumption was found to be 9.3 L/ha.Breakeven point of the wheat straw chopper was\noccurred at 225 hours of use.
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