Progress in Mechanical Jatropha Harvesting
March 8th, 2010
Jatropha harvesting is painstaking and time consuming work (see also chapter 3 of the Jatropha Handbook). Mechanical harvesting is often regarded as the holy grail: it would substantially reduce jatropha oil production costs in many developing countries where levels of income are moving up to 5 to 10 USD /day. It would also alleviate labor stress periods in the growing of Jatropha.
The search for appropriate mechanical harvesting technologies for Jatropha is slowly progressing. FACT has interviewed David Erazo, Director General of Agroipsa. Mr. Erazo has a large Jatropha plantation in Choluteca in Honduras, and has done harvesting trials with the BEI jatropha harvester. FACT’s Winfried Rijssenbeek asked him a few questions on his experiences.
Q: | Is the claim of 1 hr per Ha realistic for the BEI in the good Choluteca conditions? |
A: | We have tested under good conditions and bad conditions, I think the track machine is better for Choluteca, thinking of strong rainfall in July or September. |
Q: | Did BEI test only a small area e.g. 1 ha or did it work trough many? |
A: | We tested the machine in a 25 has plot first, and then in 74 ha area. We have results per ha with a timer in hand, so the conclusions on time used are solid. |
Q: | Is the branch damage acceptable or do you have concerns that fungi might give trouble? |
A: | No, we think there is not a problem really, but we did have 10-12% of green fruits harvested. |
Q: | Did you apply any means to get seed harvesting frequency down by e.g. using chemical growth ripeners or setting the right conditions like pruning, or other tricks? |
A: | Not, but we think the Giberelin can be possibly a better condition for a uniform harvest. In the test we did not use hormones or chemicals. |
Q: | How do you see other harvester companies in the Jatropha trials? |
A: | The Oxbo harvest machine is good, but in our opinion the BEI harvester is better. |
For further information please contact Winfried Rijssenbeek.
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The BEI Mechanical jatropha harvester. Source: http://www.uscjo.com/mechanical_jatropha_harvester_video.html
