MECHANIZATION ON HARVESTING

AND INFIELD COLLECTION OF OIL

PALM

Shamil Mudhheher Abbood

Phd student / Faculty of Engineering /Agricultural process
Engineering
CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Background 1.1

From time immortal human being on this earth has

been living on the natural vegetables and animals . But
by the passage of time and the evolution of life with the
invention of the machines in agricultural production,
agriculture evolve day after another down to the present
condition. In the present day an increased in demand for
agricultural products as a result of the steady increase in
the population growth, not only for food that provide Food
Security, also the need for greater agricultural products
for industrial purposes has entered agricultural
products .Nowadays , decrease of petroleum production
forced the sciences to thinking about alternative fuel ,one
of this now production is bio-chemical that can use as fuel
and other consumer. In fact, oil palm has a significant
.importance to industry and product the alternative fuel

Recent century ,oil palm has become a one of the

words major agricultural crop in east and central Africa
(Zeven ,1972; smith et; al .,1992).Recently, it has
dramatically increasing in southeast Asia (wicke et al ,
2011).Actually, Oil palm is one of a highly profitable crop
adapted to the humid tropics and the area devoted to this
crop is likely to expand significantly in the future. It has
many environmentally favorable attributes over its full life
cycle. When well managed it has a positive carbon
balance and when grown in a landscape mosaic it can play
a role in biodiversity conservation. It has driven rapid
economic growth in several tropical developing countries
and contributed to the alleviation of rural poverty (.Jeffery
.et al, 2012)

Nowadays, Malaysia become the largest producer and

exporter of oil palm in the world, it is accounts for about
55%of the world palm and about 62%of world exports. The
increased industrialization in this agricultural sector has
resulted in the emergence of numerous refineries in the
country competition is stiff on the world market, research
and development is critical to generate knowledge as well
as to increase production and processing efficiency
.(W.I.W.Ishak and R.M.Hudzari 2010)

Harvesting is the most important an activity in oil

palm cultivation. It was estimated that the operation
requires about 60%of the total labor for the crop and
about 50 %of the total cost.(Abdul razak ,at.al 2007).oil
palm harvesting involves four interrelated activities , like
cutting the fronds and fruit bunches ,stacking for fronds
collecting the lose fruits and carrying the harvested fruit
to the collection point .(abdul razak; et; al.
1998).nowadays, there is about 25%of FFB collection is
done through mini tractor and 75%is really done on
manual labor (Abbai Belai; et; al ,2008). Indeed, a lot of
time and energy (and therefore production cost) goes into
oil palm harvesting. Such an enormous amount of energy
is required for harvesting oil palm that even cutting a
single frond alone, using the sickle cutter (the Malaysian
knife), could require the exertion of effort force as much as
18,048 N for the most matured frond (Jelani; et; al, 1999).
Further, Bevan and Gray (1969) reported that in a study
on palms aged between 9 and 25 years in Malaysia,
between 43.5 and 45.4 % of the total annual man-days is
spent on harvesting. Harvesting from the older trees took
more man-days. The situation, most likely, has not
changed today because harvesting is still being done
.manually
Mechanical harvesting is one of the significant
operations to product the oil palm FFB. Throughout the
past decades many machines were invented for oil palm
harvesting by Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) but none
of them was made commercial due to its inefficiency. This
was because the harvester operator faces difficulty in
positioning the mechanical cutter to the bunch stalk
during cutting process (Helena Anusia and Wan Ishak
2010). The defies of the oil palm is the method of
harvesting because the fruits are compactly packed in the
bunches are hidden in the leaf axils in the crowns that
may be more than 10 m higher .also, each tree need to
visited every 10-15 days as fruit bunches ripen (Kwasi,
2002).However, oil palm mechanical harvesting (cutting
and collecting) still need more improving to be useable,
.low cost and able to reach both high and low palm tree

In fact, there are many several machines and tools

have manufacturing to achieve these aims such as
telescopic and elbow type arm harvester (manufacturing
and developing by MPOB).But these machines still have a
problems or issues such as a high cost or difficulty of
moving around the field between the trees There are
several machines have manufactured such us a machine
for harvesting tall palms and motorize cutter were
developed in MPOB in 2004 and 2010 (Abd rahim shuib et
al 2004) (Abd Razak et al. 2010) .But every one of this
machine has own problem such as a high cost and
limitation of working .For this project we design a low cost
liner mechanical cutter with light flexible pole to reach a
tall palm tree and scissor basket left install in front of
medium tractor to integrate the cutting and collecting oil
.palm fruit FFB in one time

The previous dump truck FFB collector was

modification in 1982 as FFB collector and transporter .the
harvester cut the FFB and let it fall in to the modified
dumper to reduce damage and avoid loose fruits. The
truck dumber will collect the FFB and transport them to
the collection point. In 2004 MPOB has developing tall
palms harvesting machine .the machine carry a
telescopic boom which the cutting mechanism is mounted
onto it .It is able to cut the FFB and convey in to the
container . The challenge of this machine it is still costly .
Initially, mechanical of oil palm harvesting of oil palm fruit
bunches (FFB) remains issue that need to solve, the short
tree current methods by using the chisel or sickle, which
requires manual labor (Abd Rahim Shuib rt;al.2004).
Since 1982 many harvesting machines have been
developed for harvesting palm fruit bunches (FFB)
.Nowadays, the big define to developing or manufacturing
a suitable cutter and collecting machine to reach both of
high and low harvesting with light weight, low cost and
.lower cutting force and fast

The main objectives of this project is design and

fabricate the suitable mechanical cutter for cutting leaf
and FFB and harvesting platform that has installed on the
tractors frame. .The tractor supports the hydraulic power
to operate the scissor lift and the air compressing power
to operate the cutter. So in this new design of mechanical
cutter and collection platform will be useful for medium
and high trees with plausible cost .also, use the available
power sources to operate the cutter and lifting the
.platform

There are several tools machines have been developing

to harvest the FFB. The Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB)
has developed a motorized cutter. it has being able to
more than double labored productivity for harvesting .The
only drawback for this cutter is that can only harvest
palms of below 4.5 m . ( Abd Razak; et ;al. 2007). This
cutter consists of a petrol engine located of the bottom of
the pole .A telescopic aluminum pole , Sickle as cutting
head and rotational motion from the engine is transmitted
to pear of gears from where the sickle is connected
through the transmission shaft. (F. Azhar; et; al .2012).
Later, improving of oil palm motorize cutter has been
done in 2010 by MPOB to be strong to durable enough to
overcome high friction due the high speed of cutting (Abd
.Razak;et; al. 2010)

A linear oscillatory actuator for oil palm mechanical

cutter had been designed and fabricated .This cutter can
reach palm until 8 m and the weight is 7.5 kg . LOA is
proposal to replace the bevel gears to produce direct liner
motion .LAO actually is activated by dynamo which
converts the mechanical energy provided by the petrol
engine to electrical energy .This energy will cause the LOA
shaft connected to the sickle to vibrate the sickle .In this
system was replace the transmission shaft inside pole with
a pair of copper wire to connect the dynamo with the LOA
.(F. Azhar et al 2012)

In recent years MPOB has been developing of machine

for harvesting tall palms .this machine it is carry a
telescopic boom which the cutting mechanism is mounted
into it. It is able to cutting FFB and covey it into the
nearest container without letting it fall on the ground .The
challenge of this machine it is heavy and costly(Abd
Razak; et; al. 2004) .On the other hand ,collage of food
and agriculture in U.A.E has been developed a tractor
mount date palm tree service machine .The developed
system is attached to the rear of tractor ,system's power
source is the tractor hydraulic system .The machine has
the capability to lift a service worker and the required
tools to the crown zoon as high as 4.5 m.(Moustafa
A.Fadel 2005). A quick attachment mechanism need to be
developed to make attachment of the machine to the
.tractor easir

In the new design, the pneumatic driven saw is use as

cutting tool .The pneumatic driver selected because the
weight is so light (0.9) kg ,also the air power which drove
can get from any compressor using a small petrol engine
or tractor power through a PTO shaft which provide 5.39
letter/sec .The pneumatic driven saw selected to be
suitable for oil palm leaf and FFB. It has 15 cm length with
double action cutting, it is manufacturing from high carbon
steel .The vibration of the engine is about 5000 SPM with
free load. The cutting head connect to the double
extension aluminum pole 38, 42 .Actually, the pole
material specifications selected to be compatible with the
MBOPs specifications .The two parts of pole joint together
by double clamp. The air is supply to the cutting head by
the 1/4 high pressure tube pass inside the aluminum
pole. T- Double clamp is use to join the two parts of pole,
this clamp easy to adjust the length of extension pole
depend of height of tree; the cutter is light enough to
.carry it

U-shape basket on a scissor lift will be install in front of

the 45 hp tractor. To reach the fruit the worker will be able
to utilize until the trees are 25 ft tall. The tractor will be
position at the base of the tree in the maturing fruit
side ,so the trunk of tree is positioned inside the basket
through the U- shape .The basket will lifted to appropriate
height . Therefore, the bunch can be easily harvest by the
cutter after cutting the nearest leaf .Finally ,the FFB fruit
will fall inside the basket directly .after harvesting the
fruit the tractor will move to another tree and when the
basket be full ,the driver will drive the tractor to nearest
.FFB collection point to discharge the harvesting

problem Statement 1.2

Rapid chopping method motorized cutter (cantas)

which developed by MPOM was finding an effective
solution to solve the oil palm harvesting issues .But this
existing cutter is limited to palm trees below 5 meter
height .Palm trees higher than 5 meter face a difficulty to
use this cutter because of limitation of height and extra
weight. Developing a longer reach cutter with light weight
.is necessary demand to solve the cutting problem

Collecting oil palm fruit after cutting still critical problem

because it need more labor and lose a lot of fruit epically
tall tree , .MOPM has been developing a tall palm trees. is
machine has ability to convey the FFB to the container
.But the significant issues of this machine it is costly and
difficult to move among trees. To override these issues
of height cost and difficulty of collection ffb ;this research
will focus to use a mini tractor to cut and collect ffb .The
scissor basket left will install over the min tractor .The
basket will reach a 3.5 meter with the height of the tractor
;using a 5 meter cuter ,the total heigh will be 8.5 meter
.This new harvesting method will cover the midum and
tall trees were in the economical age and integrate cutting
. and collecting FFB a ones

Objectives 1.3

To design and fabricate extensions pole and 1.3.1

.mechanical cutter

.To design and fabricate a scissor lift basket 1.3.2

To integrate the cutting and collection the oil palm 1.3.3

. FFB
CAPTER 2

LITRERTURE REVIEW

Introduction 2.1

Oil palm is a tree without branches but with many wide

leaves or fronds at the crown of tree. It is become the
world's number one fruit crop because of it is unparalleled
productivity (Butler 2006).The first large plantation in
Sumatra was planted in 1911.Otherwise, in 1917 the first
true plantation was established in Malaysia in the Selangor
district . Currently, Malaysia has 4.7 million of oil palm
plantation and the harvested area is 11.20 million ha. The
potential land of oil palm plantation is increasing
dramatically. Malaysia can only rely on another 28%of
potential oil palm plantation area. Actually, oil palm
harvesting in Malaysia is still heavily relied on foreign
labor .Initially, there are 369000 foreign workers employed
in plantation (Yik Nam Lee 2011).Approximately,
harvesting and collections of FFB and a lose fruits are
laborious, time consuming and incur the highest cost of
operation .Thus it is justified to improve the existing
machines and systems in the plantation to solve the labor,
.time and cost
oil palm bunch 2.2

Oil palm is monoceous ; both

male and female flowers on the same tree. (Mohd Hanif
and Mohd Roslan,2002). Bunch harvesting commences
about 24 to 30 months after planting; each palm tree can
produce between 8-15 fresh fruit bunches of FFB yearly.
Each bunch is normally weighting about 5 -25 kg
depending on the planting material and age of the palm.
Also, each fruit bunch contains between 1000- 1300 fruit
lets (Teoh,2002). A fruit bunch takes about 20 to 22 weeks
to ripe (Aziz et al,1990). The ripeness is normally indicated
Fig 2.1show the fruit bunch after cutting

by the fruit color fruit changes from black to reddish

orange (Kadia and Zulkily,1992) fig 2.1 shown the fruit
bunch . Currently, a new concept of image based
measurement for modeling the oil palm FFB maturity
predication which enables to determine the correct time
for harvesting (W.I.W.Ishak and R.M.Hudzari,2010)

Harvesting 2.3

Timeliness harvesting is very crucial to the quantity and

quality of yield fruit of oil palm. The under ripe fruit will
yield lower quantity of oil while the over ripe will yield oil
with high free fatty acid. When a fruit is fully ripe, it loose
itself from the bunch and drops on the ground or it is
become easily detachable. So, the idle system of
harvesting would be collect loose fruit daily from the
ground. (Harcharan 1976). Thus, this method it is clearly
impossible with high plantation and production. So, a fruit
bunch is normally been as ripe enough for harvesting
when a few fruits have loosened themselves from the
.bunch and dropped on the ground (D.Adetan et al 2007)

Previous methods of harvesting 2.4

There are several methods and activates have been used

to harvesting oil palm fruit ,following
these activities and a pullers previous methods

Cutting 2.4.1

In fact, a lot of time and energy goes into the oil palm
fruit harvesting .such as enormous amount of energy is
required for harvesting oil palm that even cutting a single
front alone ,the Malaysian knife (sickle cutter) could
require exertion of force as much as 18 N for the matured
frond (Jelani et al;1999). Short trees within arm-reach are
harvested using either the cutlass or chisel to cut the
bunches and fronds. On another way, tall trees above 9 m
in height are harvested using either a single rope and
cutlass (SRC) or the double rope and cutlass (DRC) method
.the SRC method is Commonly because it is relatively
much faster though less save (Ironbar,1981).Fig 2.4.1
.show the manual short tree harvesting
Medium -height oil palm
trees beyond arm reach up to height of about 9 m are
harvested using the bamboo pole and knife (BPK)
method .The heights of pole depend of the average
height of the trees .nowadays, another method is the
aluminum pole and knife (APK) method . in this method ,a
40 mm diameter pore replace the bamboo pole of the
(BPK) harvesting method .It work very well and faster
than the BPK method for trees of height below 5.5 m .
Above this height ,bending of long harvesting pole that are
relatively heavier cutting knives on top constitutes very
serious problem as it become difficult to engage the stalks
of palm fronts and bunches (D.Adetan et al 2007) .
Fig 2.4.1the manual
harvesting fig 2.4.2 the tall balm harvesting

Mechanization cutting 2.5

Recently, Malaysian palm oil board (MPOB) has

developed an significant oil palm fruit motorized cutter
which employs a specially design gears head and sickle
which is able perform the cutting with more efficient and
faster compared with traditional cutting tools .Field trail
shown that the productivity of the workers has been
increased to three times as opposed to the manual sickle.
The oil palm motorized cutter consists of a petrol engine
located at the bottom of pole ,a telescopic aluminum pole
and sickle as cutting head as shown in fig 2.5.( Abdul
. Razak et al 2007)
Fig 2.5 MPOB motorized cutter

To solve the mechanical limitation of existing oil palm

motorized cutter such as the extra weight and limitation in
height, a linear oscillatory actuator (LOA) is proposed to
replace the bevel gears to produce direct liner motion..The
LOA is activated by a generator which converts the
mechanical energy provided by the two stroke engine
(Fairul 2008)

Oil palm fruit collection 2.6

In Malaysia various mechanism collection system have

been under test since 1980s and have been gradually
developed .Wan Ishak in 1982 was modified a dumber as a
fresh fruit bunch ( FFB) collector and transporter (Malik
and Yaakob .1989). Fawzi;1994 recommended a low
powered mechanical buffalo for collecting FFB on
terraces and producing higher labor productivity.
kamarudzaman et al (1994) studied the introduction of
mechanized system of small tractor with mechanical
loading , finding that tow worker could be omitted for each
unit .deployed and the harvester increased about 65%.
Each unit could deal with about 230 to 250 ha of oil palm
.field

Fruit catching mechanism ( FCM) was fabricated by

with Japanese firm . FCM has been developed as MPOB
a harvesting machine with the cutting mechanism
attached to a boom .It can reach 10 m height , the
maximum height both a cutter blade member and fruit
catching mechanism can be extended upwards and
retracted using hydraulic cylinders .When the bunch is
sighted ,the operator will maneuver the vehicle close to
the palm and start harvesting process, then the arm
extended to the palm crown by shifting the respective
joystick control .A ones time the cutter is brought to
suitable position ,the operator will cut the fronds and
bunches ,the cut will fall down and placed into bin. (Abd
Rahim et al 2004) . Fig 2.6 shown the FCM

Fig 2.6 fruit catching mechanism

A tractor-mounted date palm tree service machine was

developed in U.A.E in 2005. The service platform is a V-
shaped basket-like structure to serve date palms, which is
attached to the tip of the aerial boom via four joints. The
V-shape gives the worker the ability to go around most of
the tree trunk to perform comfortably. To complete the
circle around the trunk, two extensions on the platform
sides and another foldable bridge were added to the
platform. The bridge can be folded down to help the
operator to go around the tree, and then folded up when
the machine is ready to move(Moustafa A .Fadel,2005).Fig
2.6 shown date palm serves machine

Fig 2.6 date palm serves machine

MATERIAL AND METHODOLOGY 3.1

Integrate the harvester and dump track collector

system is a urgent necessity for oil palm harvesting .In
this research firstly, will design and fabricate the
pneumatically cutter with aluminum extensional pole .the
cutter has a 6 in high carbon steel saw fig 3.1 shown the
cutter design .the 5000 spm saw will vibrate in 0.9 cm
stroke .Fig 3.1 shown the sold design for cuter and pole.
The cutter will be connected with the pole by using propel
structure holder .tow part of pole will joint through a
double clamp. The cutter will reach the leaf and FFB within
8 m height. Suitable air compressor will install behind the
tractor to proved the cutter in air presser trough the three
point attach. On the other hand, scissor lift basket will
design and fabricated to install on the 45 hp 4 wheel drive
tractor. The hight of scissor is 2 meter .It is installing on
the

Fig 3.1 the sold drawing design for the cutter and
extension pole

tractor frame with height 1.5 ,above the scissor the

harvesting U-shape basket will install . The basket shape
allow the basket go into the palm tree trunk .The basket
divide in tow part first part for harvester standing . The
harvester stand in basket and controlling the position the
basket .After that the worker will use the cutter to cut the
bunches, the bunch will fall in the basket. The hydraulic
dumper collection system (scissor basket) to ease in
catching the fallen FFB, transport them and dumped at the
collection point. This new tractor system will reduce time
and labor harvest, collect FFB, collect lose fruits and
.transport the fruit to the collection point

scissor lift 3.2

A scissor lifting device is a system that allows small
force (effort) to overcome a large force or load (Alexander
et al, 1978, Smith, 1981, Nelkon, 1985). There are
practically hundreds of uses for lift scissors in
manufacturing, warehousing and distribution facilities. The
addition of this device (lift scissor ) makes job faster, safer
and easier. Some typical applications include; machine
feeding and offloading, product assembly, inspection
quality control repair, feeding and offloading conveyor
.levels

One of the most important factors of lift platform is its

stability. Knowing that stability is a source of concern for a
lift platform, its positioning should be on a flat surface and
the load should be place or when compared to other lifting
device; firstly, its dependency on power supply is
eliminated. Secondly, it allows smooth movement without
jerking due to steady increase in fluid pressure, majority of
.lift platform in market make use of hydraulic

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