Viabilidade econômica de um protótipo para sistema de colheita semimecanizada da cultura da acerola

Abstract

The modernization of agricultural activities is essential to its sustainability and yield. When evaluating the harvest system of acerola, it is observed that the most common practice is hand harvesting. The alternatives to this system are semi-mechanized and mechanized harvesting. As an alternative of semi-mechanized mode, a prototype for acerola harvesting was tested, which was developed at the Amway-Nutrilite do Brasil farm, located in the municipality of Ubajara-CE, Brazil. The semi-mechanized harvesting system developed is composed of a prototype machine driven by a 10,3kw hand tractor, by the labor of three people, a driver and two employees. The reaped fruits are collected by the machine that, separate branches, leaves and directs them up to plastic boxes that are stored in the prototype by the workers. Were evaluated the harvest time per plant, per line of cultivation, total weight of the fruits and cost of the operation, these were compared with the manual harvest and mechanized harvest, which was performed with an olive harvester adapted to harvest acerola. The results showed that the suggested prototype is economically feasible for the acerola harvest between 2 and 32 hectares.