GENTLE CABBAGE HARVESTING

When harvesting cabbage by machine, the heads of cabbage are severely injured. Mechanically damaged heads of cabbage are poorly stored. Therefore, the machine technology of cabbage harvesting should provide protection of heads of cabbage from mechanical damage. The purpose of the research is to study the qualitative indicators of the operation of a multivariate cabbage harvester with various harvesting technological schemes. The considered technological schemes for harvesting cabbage include: careful shipment of heads in bulk of a universal vehicle (Scheme 1); careful point shipment of heads of cabbage into containers installed in the back of a vehicle (diagram 2); shipment of heads of cabbage on a flexible flooring installed in the vehicle, with their subsequent careful transfer to containers manually (Scheme 3); stowing heads of cabbage into containers on an accompanying trailer manually (Scheme 4). During the production check, under conditions typical for the main regions of mass marketable production of cabbage, the multivariate cabbage harvester steadily performed the technological process. At the same time, its quality indicators met the established agrotechnical requirements. Combine operation according to schemes 3 and 4 ensured the preservation of product quality to the maximum extent: damage to heads of cabbage did not exceed 5 ... 6%, the completeness of cabbage leaves removal was 95 ... 100%. Therefore, its use according to schemes 1 and 2 is recommended mainly when harvesting cabbage for short-term and medium-term storage, according to schemes 3 and 4 - when harvesting heads of cabbage intended for long-term storage