AS SILAGE PRODUCTION MACHINES: STATE OF THE ART OF MANUFACTURERS EQUIPMENT AVAILABLE IN BRAZIL

Abstract

Silage is a forage conservation process where the food is obtained from the green plant, where the vegetables must be cut and/or fragmented, with stationary, tractored or self-propelled machines, being then stored in silos or used in direct feeding of the animals. Mechanization planning in a production system takes into account qualitative and quantitative aspects so that the selection of components meets the need, although they are often overestimated, seeking greater efficiency and productivity, but with economic, agronomic and environmental consequences. This work aimed to collect data on technical parameters made available by the manufacturers of stationary machines, tractors and self-propelled forage harvesters and to present a state of the art existing in the Brazilian market. In this way, a database with technical information about the machines was created by searching the electronic pages of the manufacturers and calculating their relationships. Subsequently, descriptive statistical analyzes were performed and minimum, average and maximum, amplitude, number of values, classes number, standard deviation, coefficient of variation and amplitude of classes were calculated, in addition to absolute and relative frequencies and the construction of histograms. The results indicated that in Brazil the market for machines for the production of silage has 19 brands and 201 models, 36.3% being disintegrators, 25.9% stationary forage harvesters, 30.3% tractored forage harvesters and 7.5% self-propelled. Although each type of equipment has a wide range of work capacity and drive power, there is a predominance in the models offered.