A Grain Yield Sensor for Yield Mapping with Local Rice Combine Harvester

Rice grain yield was estimated from a locally made Thai combine harvester using a specially developed sensing and monitoring system. The yield monitoring and sensing system, mounted on the rice combine harvester, collected and logged grain mass flow rate and moisture content, as well as pertinent information related to field, position and navigation. The developed system comprised a yield meter, GNSS receiver and a computer installed with customized software, which, when assembled on a local rice combine, mapped real-time rice yield along with grain moisture content. The performance of the developed system was evaluated at three neighboring (identically managed) rice fields. ArcGIS® software was used to create grain yield map with geographical information of the fields. The average grain yield values recorded were 3.63, 3.84 and 3.60 t ha−1, and grain moisture contents (w.b.) were 22.42%, 23.50% and 24.71% from the three fields, respectively. Overall average grain yield was 3.84 t ha−1 (CV = 63.68%) with 578.10 and 7761.58 kg ha−1 as the minimum and maximum values, respectively. The coefficients of variation in grain yield of the three fields were 57.44%, 63.68% and 60.41%, respectively. The system performance was evaluated at four different cutter bar heights (0.18, 0.25, 0.35 and 0.40 m) during the test. As expected, the tallest cutter bar height (0.40 m) offered the least error of 12.50% in yield estimation. The results confirmed that the developed grain yield sensor could be successfully used with the local rice combine harvester; hence, offers and ‘up-gradation’ potential in Thai agricultural mechanization.