Karakteristik Teknik Pemanenan Buah Sawit dan Analisis Energi Potensial Tandan Buah Sawit

Abstract

When harvested, falling palm fruit bunches have a considerable potential energy. But until now there is no technology to capture and utilize the potential energy. The purpose of this research were to study the engineering characteristics of oil palm fruit harvesting, to choose the best fruit bunches catchment platform material, and to analyze the potential energy of the falling fruit bunch when harvested. Observations and measurements were taken on manual palm harvesting in an oil palm plantation with four levels of fruit height of about 3 m, 8 m, 9 m and 15 m. There are four types of catchment platform material were tested, namely: steel plate, wood board, expanded steel plate and rubber sheet. Based on the measurement results, when harvesting, harvesters took a distance of about 1.5 to 3 m to the tree. Bunches fell at a distance between 0.6 m to 1.4 m from the tree. The rubber catchment platform was superior to the other materials in reducing the scattered loose fruits and bruised fruits. The weight of the fruit bunches were in ii the range of 16 kg to 32 kg. The average potential energy at the height of the fruit of 3 m,8 m, 9 m, and 15 m were 0.6 kJ, 1.7 kJ, 2.0 kJ, and 3.6 kJ, respectively.