RESUMO
Due to the recent high prices of livestock feed in the world and the new sustainable management practices of rice straw, livestock farmers are obligated to either use or purchase rice straw and cut it to desired lengths to feed ruminants. Therefore, this study aimed to construct a combined machine for collecting and chopping rice straw for lengths preferred in feeding ruminants. The combined machine comprises three main units: a picking up unit, a chopping unit, and a takeout unit. Field experiments were performed on average rice straw moisture content of 25% (w.b.) to evaluate the performance of the combined machine, under factors of 1.3, 1.6, 1.9, and 2.2 km h-1 forward speeds, elevator velocities of 0.79, 0.94, and 1.10 m s-1, and chopping knives rotational speeds of 1600, 2000 and 2400 rpm. The obtained results indicated that the consumed specific energy was 90.94 kWh ha-1 to achieve the highest field capacity of 0.24 ha h-1, with collecting efficiency of 95.30% at a forward speed of 2.2 km h-1, elevator velocity of 1.10 m s-1 and rotational speed of 2400 rpm for chopping knives. In order to achieve the highest chopping quality of 95%, it is recommended to operate the elevator velocity at 0.79 m s-1, rotate chopping knives at 2400 rpm, and drive the tractor at a forward speed of 1.3 km h-1. The total operating cost of the combined machine is lower than the traditional methods by about 49.84%.
RESUMO
The main aim of this paper was to investigate the possibility of growing basil under three soilless systems (aeroponic, hydroponic and peatmoss slab systems). A model was developed to predict the nutrients consumption by basil plants. Shoot and root height, fresh and dry mass of whole plant, nutrients uptake, and oil content were studied during the growth period (after 4 and 7 weeks from transplanting). The results indicated that the shoot lengths of basil plants were 71.67 ± 2.89, 65.67 ± 1.15 and 62.33 ± 2.31 cm at the end of growth period for aeroponic, hydroponic and peatmoss slabs, respectively. The highest value of root height of basil plants was 37.67 ± 6.66 cm for aeroponic system. The dry mass of shoot of basil plants ranged from 28.48 ± 0.91 to 44.77 ± 0.97 and 72.98 ± 0.83 to 117.93 ± 1.40 g plant-1 after 4 and 7 weeks from transplanting, respectively. The highest values of the N, P, K, Ca and Mg uptakes were 753.99 ± 5.65, 224.88 ± 3.05, 449.75 ± 4.59, 529.12 ± 6.63 and 112.44 ± 1.67 mg plant-1 at the end of experimental period, respectively. The basil oil content ranged from 1.129 (1.11%) to 2.520 (1.80%) and 2.664 (1.42%) to 6.318 (1.44%) g plant-1 after 4 and 7 weeks from transplanting, respectively at the same pervious order. The production costs of basil plant were 2.93, 5.27 and 6.24 EGP kg-1 of plant. The model results were in a reasonable agreement with the experimental ones.
