Sistemas de colheita na cultura da acerola: estudo operacional (malpighia emarginata. DC)

Abstract

The aceroleira (Malpighia emarginata D.C.) is the main natural source of vitamin C, has great economic and nutritional potential in continuous growth in the domestic and foreign markets. The high demand for manual labor in the harvesting operation, requires studies on the most efficient harvesting systems that reduce the production costs of acerola and solves part of the problems arising from the shortage of labor. The present study aimed to evaluate the manual and semi-mechanized harvesting systems in the acerola culture in the BRS 366 variety. The experiment was conducted on a farm located in the municipality of Piracuruca, in the interior of the state of Piauí. The experimental design was completely randomized, consisting of two harvesting systems (manual and semi-mechanized) with five replications. The variables evaluated were the quality of the harvest, the operational costs of harvesting and the field capacity of the harvesting systems. The data were collected separately in loco and stored in the Excel spreadsheet, then they were subjected to analysis of variance by the F test and the means, compared by the Student test, at 5% significance. The data were analyzed using the Agroestat software. The results showed that the semi-mechanized harvesting system obtained less losses and being more efficient than the manual system for harvesting green fruits destined to the vitamin C industry. The semi-mechanized harvesting system presented an operating cost of harvest 81% lower than the manual one. The field capacity in the harvesting process with reentry after five days, the semi-mechanized system was 2.2ha, and the manual system 0.2ha. Although deferred, the damage caused to plants by the semi-mechanized harvest was not relevant due to the small relationship between subtracted biomass, total biomass and the speed of structural regeneration of the plant.