RU2568861C2 - Method of manual harvesting and preparing tobacco leaves for drying - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: agriculture.

SUBSTANCE: invention relates to a method of harvesting and preparing the tobacco leaves for drying, which includes collecting and transporting the tobacco leaves in a roll storage tank, in which formation of the layer of leaves is carried out between the surfaces of flexible air-permeable material by winding it into a roll under tension ensuring fixation of the leaves in a predetermined position, and the leaves on the material of the storage tank are located with the petioles in one direction, the leaf petioles are adjacent to each other, the blade of the subsequent leaf partly overlaps the previous one, forming a layer uniformly laid and equal in thickness.

EFFECT: providing better performance in preparing the tobacco leaves for drying, reduction of labour intensity of the method and reduction of losses of leaves.

2 cl, 1 dwg

Description

The invention relates to a technology for the production of tobacco raw materials and can be used in tobacco-producing farms with manual harvesting of tobacco leaves.

Currently, manual harvesting of tobacco is still widespread, especially in countries with insufficiently high levels of economic development, for example, Moldova, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and others. Tobacco work is very difficult and laborious, especially in harvesting and post-harvest processing. To facilitate it, a new method of harvesting and postharvest processing of tobacco is proposed.

There is a method of manual cleaning and preparing tobacco leaves for drying (I.P. Leonov, Textbook of a tobacco grower / M. - Agropromizdat, 1986), which is currently used and consists in the following. Harvesting leaves from the plant is carried out according to breaking (tiers) as they ripen. A breaker moving along the aisle simultaneously breaks off technically mature leaves with two hands from two rows, picking them up by 5-10 pieces, connects them into a bundle and puts it in the aisle. Then he collects the bunches, takes them out of the row-spacing and puts them in the appropriate containers - baskets, boxes, burlap (soft packaging) in the form of a bale, with a capacity of 30-40 kg, trying not to disturb the order of the folded leaves in the bunch. Leaves delivered from the field are immediately laid out to exclude stubs and preliminary languishing on the floor in dense rows, petioles up, in bunches, without disturbing their order and covered with mats or in-line, languishing for 2 days. Preliminary languishing is provided by technological standards. Before drying, the leaves are strung on a cord or other elements (needles, cassettes) in a certain order, with petioles in one direction, for this they are again collected in containers, trying not to violate the order of laying in bundles, and served to a low place.

The disadvantage of this method is the low labor productivity and high labor costs for post-harvest preparation of leaves for drying: laying out the leaves after delivery from the field, collecting them and feeding to low, as well as the complexity because of the constant need to maintain the order of stacking leaves in bunches.

The well-known "Method of accumulation and transportation of tobacco leaves" (US Pat. RU 2264073, IPC A01D 45/16, publ. 11/20/05, Bull. No. 32), providing for the formation of a layer of leaves between the surfaces of a flexible breathable material, in which a layer of tobacco leaves is formed when laying them between the inner and outer surfaces of the same material by winding it into a roll with the tension of the material, which ensures the fixation of the leaves in a given position, and the material has a rough surface with a coefficient of rest friction equal to 0.9-1.2, and possesses hygroscopic properties. The method allows to dry leaves in a roll, due to the hygroscopicity of the material, provides short-term storage and languishing of leaves in a roll up to 3 days, without reducing their quality.

The disadvantage of this method is its binding to a special device on a combine harvester, rewinding material from the feed drum to the receiving drum. Laying leaves on the tape, when machine harvesting them with a combine, does not make it possible to reduce the labor costs and the complexity of their post-harvest processing. In preparation for drying and stringing leaves on cords or needles, it is necessary to make a selection of leaves and their corresponding orientation.

The method is taken as a prototype and is used for manual tobacco harvesting.

The technical result of the method is to increase the productivity and quality of fixing leaves in preparation for drying, reducing leaf loss.

The technical result is achieved by the fact that in the method of harvesting and preparing tobacco leaves for drying, which involves the accumulation and transportation of tobacco leaves in a roll store, the formation of a layer of leaves is between the surfaces of flexible breathable material by winding it into a roll with tension, which fixes the leaves in a given position , according to the invention, the leaves on the drive material are arranged with petioles in one direction, leaf petioles are adjacent to each other, the plate of the subsequent sheet is hour It substantially overlaps the previous one, thus forming a layer uniformly laid out and uniform in thickness. The material of the drive is made in the form of a tape, the width of which should be within the average length of the sheet, in order to provide air access to the petioles for their withering.

In FIG. 1 shows a method of harvesting and preparing leaves for drying.

The method is as follows. Harvesting leaves from plant 1 is carried out by breaking (tiers) as they mature. A breaker moving along the aisle breaks off technically mature leaves from two rows, accumulates the leaves in pile 2 and takes them out of the aisle onto the road between plantings. The tape drive 4 width B, equal to the average sheet length of 300-500 mm, is spread on a special substrate (film, mesh, etc.) 3 to prevent clogging of the leaves with earth. Broken leaves are laid on a spread tape of the drive in such a way that one plate of the sheet partially overlaps the other, the petioles are adjacent to each other and are oriented in one direction, forming a layer uniformly laid out and of the same thickness. The drive tape laid out by leaves is folded manually with a little effort into a roll 5, the end of which is fixed in any way, for example, with hooks or a pin. The length of the tape can be in the range from 5 m to 15 m, and is limited by the carrying capacity of the roll store with leaves (weight not more than 20 kg).

The method is used for cleaning all scraps from 1 to 6. The coils 5 prepared for transportation are stacked in any vehicle, on top of each other with the plane of the leaves in the roll parallel to the direction of the vehicle’s movement, the counter-current from the vehicle’s movement blows off the leaves and dries them by evaporation of moisture. After delivery, rolls with leaves are unloaded and stored in a cool room or under a canopy for no more than 2 days, during which their quality is guaranteed, which is confirmed by experimental studies. The layer of storage material between the leaves maintains their quality, the leaves do not stick together, since they do not come into contact with each other in large masses, their storing is excluded and during short-term (up to 2 days) storage in a roll, with a lack of oxygen and self-heating with high humidity of freshly harvested leaves (70-80%), the leaves are languishing. In the process of languishing, evaporation of moisture also occurs, while the tape drive contributes to its removal (burlap partially absorbs moisture, and the mesh increases the porosity of the roll). For low leaves, when preparing them for drying, the rolls are brought to the intended workplace, unfold them and string the leaves on the appropriate devices (cords, needles, cassettes).

The advantage of the proposed method is the presence of the following essential features:

- the formation of a layer of leaves with oriented laying of their petioles in one direction, uniform in thickness, on the material of the drive when harvesting in the field, and fixed by the material of the tape, can significantly improve labor productivity and the quality of fixing leaves in preparation for drying. Since when unrolling the roll, the order of laying the leaves due to the friction between the material and the sheet is maintained, so the leaves are directly taken and strung on drying elements without additional selection and orientation, or sewn onto the cord with a tobacco-cutting machine. The uniformity of the thickness of the laid out layer ensures the quality of the leaves on the cord when they are fixed;

- as a breathable material of the drive, a burlap or a soft, non-elastic mesh with various cell sizes, a width of the size of the average length of the sheet, which can be manually rolled up with little effort and ensure the fixation of the leaves in a roll, is used.

- the width of the tape within the average sheet length of 300-500 mm, ensures that the leaf blades are inside the roll, and the petioles of the main vein are in contact with the environment and dry faster than the lamina. This ensures the reliability of their fastening to the cord by the tobacco-sewing machine, since they become less fragile, do not break off, which reduces tobacco losses due to their loss from the cord.

The set of essential features allows you to get the claimed technical result of the invention.

The method has been tested in a pilot farm VNII tobacco and tobacco products. The decrease in the mass of leaves in the roll due to evaporation of moisture with a roll width of 350 mm was 16%, with a roll width of 500 mm was 6%. The decrease in moisture content during languishing in a roll reduces the time of natural drying by 5-7 days.

The application of the method allows to reduce labor costs during post-harvest preparation of leaves for drying by 25-30% and to increase labor productivity by 1.5 times.

Claims (2)

1. A method of cleaning and preparing tobacco leaves for drying, comprising the accumulation and transportation of tobacco leaves in a roll store, in which the formation of a layer of leaves occurs between the surfaces of a flexible breathable material by winding it into a roll with tension, which ensures the fixing of leaves in a given position, characterized in that the leaves on the drive material are located with petioles in one direction, leaf petioles are adjacent to each other, the plate of the subsequent sheet partially overlaps the previous one, yn thus uniformly laid out and the same layer thickness. 2. The method according to p. 1, characterized in that the material of the drive is made in the form of a tape, the width of which should be within the average length of the sheet in order to provide air access to the petioles for them to wither.

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