Agrometeorological and Soil Criteria for Defining Workable Days for Rational Mechanized Sugarcane Harvest in Southern Brazil

Abstract

The number workable days (NWD) for agricultural field operations is of great importance for sizing agricultural machinery fleets. This is especially pivotal for sugarcane harvest, which extends from 8 to 10 months/year. In light of this, the current study aimed at defining criteria for obtaining the NWD for rational sugarcane harvest at different sites in the state of São Paulo, southern Brazil, taking into account both a general and a specific criteria. For this purpose, data from harvest interruption of 30 sugar mills in southern Brazil throughout periods ranging from two to five years were used. The following variables were tested as criteria for defining harvest interruption: minimum precipitation (PREC); soil water holding capacity (SWHC); and the limit of the ratio between actual soil moisture (SM) and SWHC. Based on such a specific criterion ascribed to each site along with a general criterion, NWD maps were prepared for the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The results showed that there were variations from the definition criteria of NWD at the different sites in the state. However, the use of a general criterion for harvest interruption, based on PREC ≥ 3 mm, SWHC = 40 mm and SM/SWHC ≥ 90%, provided accurate results. During the validation of these criteria, the NWD maps generated from the individual criterion proposed for each site resulted in an average error of 24.9 days/year, whereas the map generated from the general criterion culminated in an average error of 4.4 days/year.