TRANSPORT PROCESSES OF MAINTENANCE OF COMBINE HARVESTERS IN AGRICULTURAL ENTERPRISES OF SMALL FORMS OF ECONOMY

Abstract

The paper considers the possibilities of partial reduction of non-productive losses of time for changing harvesting and transporting complexes during the harvesting of grain crops in small agricultural enterprises due to the effective organisation of work, namely, ensuring a reduction in the downtime of combines through the effective selection and use of transport vehicles. The last operation in the production of grain crops is harvesting. During this operation, the most important tasks are to reduce grain losses and ensure maximum product quality. Achieving these goals is accompanied by certain difficulties in organisational arrangements, selection of technological schemes, grain harvesting and transport facilities in terms of their capacity and carrying capacity, respectively. One of the ways to reduce crop losses and increase the gross harvest of grain crops is to use grain harvesting complexes efficiently and effectively. The short harvesting period and large volumes of grain require a high level of organisation of harvesting and transporting complexes, their calculation and selection in accordance with the capabilities of enterprises. This paper analyses the methods of technological maintenance of combines When organising grain harvesting, there is a problem of downtime for both combine harvesters and road transport. The main reason for the downtime is a sudden change in the cycle time of the above equipment. This problem can be solved by including an additional link in the composition of harvesting and transporting units – tractor grain handlers. Based on the averaged indicators of the area, yield, and throughput of the combine harvester, the study of the operation of transport vehicles with combine harvesters was conducted for comparison during direct transportation using different variants of vehicles and when using intermediate links in small agricultural enterprises. The research revealed the feasibility of using the method of technological maintenance of combines in small agricultural enterprises with an arable land area of up to 500 hectares when harvesting grain crops with grain reloaders, which ensures the prevention of combine downtime and, accordingly, the reduction of agrotechnical terms for harvesting, minimisation of crop losses and solving the problems of soil compaction by preventing the movement of grain carriers with a large axle load across the fields.