Document Type : Original Article

Abstract

The increase in mechanized harvesting and harvesting machinery has led to the development of scientific approaches for choosing the best harvesting system. Seed corn is an important crop in Iran that is very sensitive to the harvesting system and has high economic value. There are several systems and machines that can be used to harvest seed corn, but all systems should be evaluated precisely. The present study evaluated a two-stage harvesting system (picker-husker), grain combine, and Wintersteiger combine for seven criteria (harvesting loss, energy usage, rent of machinery, safety and comfort of operator, instruction required, maintenance cost, field capacity) using TOPSIS and SAW models. The results of TOPSIS were CL* values of 0.60, 0.57 and 0.42 for picker-husker, grain combine, and Wintersteiger combine, respectively. A* values for the SAW model were 0.78, 0.55 and 0.49, respectively. The calculations produced the same results for the two models and it was concluded that the best system was the picker-husker harvesting system, followed by the grain combine and then the Wintersteiger combine.

Keywords

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