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India

Combine Harvester: Farming, Uses, and Facts

Agriculture is perhaps one of the leading factors that made human progress worthwhile. Through it, they fed civilizations and built societies. From manual labour to high technology methods brought by the machinery, farming has evolved over centuries. And surely, without combining harvester, a convenient machine, farmers cannot go without. It changes the way farming is carried out, from quicker to more efficient means to cost cuts. We will move ahead in this blog by delving into the world of a combine harvester, its usage in farming, interesting facts about it, and also its important role in today's practices of farming.

What is a Combine Harvester?
A combine harvester is a farm machine that can perform three major harvesting processes - reaping, threshing, and winnowing - in one continuous cycle. These functions enable the farmer to cut down their crops, separate grains from chaff, and clean the grain before storage or sale. The major crops that use this kind of harvester include wheat, corn, barley, soybeans, and rice, which should be harvested fast without loss due to rotten weather conditions or inefficiency by manual harvesters.

The best models of a combine allow total control over the whole harvesting process in order to ensure grains are collected with a minimal loss and quality.

How Does a Combine Harvester Work?
The operation of a combine harvester is complex, but it's straightforward once you understand its components. Here is a breakdown of how the machine works.

Reaping: It starts with the cutting of crops as a header is attached at the front side of a combine harvester. Then, it feeds into the machine and further processes the crops.

Threshing: Once crops have entered the harvester, the grain starts to separate from the straw and husks. The device applies rotating cylinders, known as threshers, for beating the grain loose from the plant.

Winnowing: After the separation of grains from straw, chaff, and debris, the remaining grain will be cleaned as well. This is achieved through air fans and sieves due to the fact that these filter out the lighter material left among the heavier grains.

The combine harvester places a collection of clean grain inside a grain tank, and any straw or chaff left is expelled from the rear of the machine and potentially as livestock feed or soil cover.

It is the right machine for farmers whose workplace is challenging terrains, such as wet paddy fields. Its tracks rather than wheels provide them with more stability, hence less soil compaction, enabling them to be efficiently run on muddy or uneven grounds.

Current Applications of Combine Harvester in Farming

1. Time Saving
The harvesting season is the time of the year when weather conditions or delay can lead to rotting or damage of the crops. A combine harvester, by its turn, takes time to harvest the largest field unlike manual harvesting or even small-sized machines. Because it can cut, thresh, and winnow simultaneously, this means that the best combine harvesters preserve for farmers valuable time and optimal harvest time.

2. Flexibility
Combine harvesters are multi-purpose machines, as they can harvest various crops such as wheat, oats, barley, rice, corn, soybeans, and other pulses as well as oilseed varieties. The settings can be altered depending on the type of crop to be harvested; therefore, it is a good investment for farmers who sow many crops.

3. Cost-Effectiveness
Although a combine harvester requires a huge amount of money to purchase the equipment, the benefits in terms of reduction in labor costs and time elapsed are immense in the long term. Unlike when hundreds of workers would have to be employed in the manual harvesting process, one person can function the harvester and easily get this done. This not only saves labor but also reduces the rate at which grain is lost after harvesting; hence maximum returns can be accessed from the harvest.

4. Reduced Crop Loss
Manual harvest tends to produce huge crop loss since the cutting, handling, and processing for a long time are all affected. A combine harvester, however, significantly reduces crop losses by cutting and separating the grains in a short time, thus avoiding any form of loss in yield. Even at its best model of combine harvesters, grain loss during harvest is minimal because of high accuracy.

5. Better Quality Grains
The cleaning and winnowing process combined when a combine harvester is used ensures grains come out pure with no impurities such as straw, chaff, or other forms of dirt in the grains. This means cleaner grains with less moisture during storage or sale. Grain quality directly determines market value, and using a track harvester or a tracked combine harvester can ensure farmers get high yields with maximum profit.

6. Huge Size and Capacity
The average combine harvester can weigh about 20 tons and can harvest about 30,000 kilograms of grain per hour. The size and model all depend on the type.

7. Environmental Benefits 
The use of the combine harvester saves on the environment aspect because the harvesting is done using fewer amounts of fuel and less labour, and its use minimises the use of a large number of machines.

Track harvesters: a game-changer for paddy cultivation
Traditionally, rice-growing regions have had challenging harvests in wet and sloppy fields. With wheeled harvesters, once the cutter gets stuck, or sometimes even causing significant soil compaction, field damage would be the obvious outcome, and work had to be delayed. Not so with a track harvester.

A rubber-tracked combine harvester rather than one with wheeled movement allows for easy action on wet, muddy, or uneven ground. Tracks spread the weight of the machine more uniformly over the land and minimize soil compaction that would otherwise preclude subsequent planting. These machines are therefore well suited to rice and similar crops in wet or hilly locations.

Advantages of Track Harvester

Higher Traction Value: This can be said to be better because their traction is superior when it comes to the muddy or soft fields.
More Soil Protection: The pressure exerted on the soil is reduced by the increased surface area covered by the tracks which ultimately minimizes the damage to the field.
Better Stability: This makes the machine less likely to tip or get stuck even when put on steep or uneven terrain.

Choosing the Right Combine Harvester
The best combine harvester should be chosen by farmers based on the kind of crop he tills, the size of his fields, and also the terrain he operates in. Wet or uneven terrain does very well under a tracked combine harvester, whereas regular wheeled harvester gives good results on dry, flat land.

Other things that should be considered include fuel efficiency, easy maintenance, and after-sales support. The harvester has to suit their needs, with long-term reliability and performance.

Future of Harvesting Technology
High-tech farming technology keeps the combines advanced on the front edge of innovation. Future improvements are likely to include self-harvesting machines with minimum human intervention, AI-fitted equipment that can determine at a moment in time conditions across the field and green engines to minimize the consumption of fuels and lower emissions.

The best combine harvesters have an excellent future ahead as they can still do much better in terms of efficiency, sustainability, and user-friendliness so that the challenges of feeding ever-growing global populations become little easier for farmers.

Conclusion
For farmers looking for a machine that would serve them with top performance, reliability, and precision, the Mahindra Swaraj Pro Combine 7060 Harvester can be termed the ultimate choice for them. Designed especially to reap paddy with easiness, the combine harvester offers frictionless reaping, threshing, and winnowing without grain loss and breakage, thereby retaining high quality. This particular producer delivers maximum in-class performance so as to give maximum grain yield along with absolute features.

With the Swaraj Pro Combine 7060, more productivity and ease of operations can be achieved while handling even the toughest field conditions-be it a wet paddy field or uneven terrain. For contemporary farmers, with the best combine harvester through user-friendly operation and high-tech innovation, obtaining high yields without considerably high operational costs is possible.

As the last milestone of this long journey, Mahindra's Swaraj Pro Combine 7060 Harvester will have you experience the future of harvesting today. Achieving best-in-class acreage is possible with the most advanced harvester that is available in the market.