Club of bologna proceedings

Combine harvesters
- Field tests of the 
machine for crops, transplanters, 
harvesters, etc, are considered to be more 
important than indoor bench tests. For 
combine harvesters, two types of field 
tests which ascertain working accuracy 
and working efficiency are essential in the 
National test (
Table 5
). The working 
accuracy test determines grain losses 
during the harvesting operation and the 
working efficiency test measures the time 
taken to harvest a crop in a regulated area. 
Grain losses consist of “head loss”, the 
grain left on the ground during harvesting, 
“threshing loss”, the grain exhausted with 
stalk after threshing and “sorting loss”, the 
grain exhausted with chaff after sorting. In 
the case of testing on paddies or wheat, if 
the total grain loss is more than 3 % of the 
total harvested grain, the machine is 
rejected by the National test. In the case of 
testing on soybean, the numerical criteria 
of grain loss is not regulated because grain 
loss is easily influenced by conditions of 
moisture content, etc. 
In working accuracy tests the quality of 
the harvested grain is also checked. If 1% 
of material other than grain or 1% of 
mechanically damaged grain is included in 
the total harvested grain, then the tested 
machine is rejected. 
In Japan, the fields of individual farmers 
are relatively small, so in combine 
harvesters they look not only at the 
question of “speedy harvesting”, but also 
at the question of “harvesting without 
grain damage or grain loss”. At every 
farming exhibition, the manufacturers of 
combine harvesters give demonstrations 
which focus strongly on these issues. 
Other machines
- The other kinds of 
machines, rice transplanters, vegetable 
transplanters, power sprayers, air blast 
sprayers, potato harvesters and beet 
harvesters, are also tested under the 
National test code. The machines whose 
test codes include field tests are tested for 
working accuracy and working efficiency 
as in the test code for combine harvesters.