The objective of this work was to adapt existent testing procedures for self propelled harvesters and to evaluate semi-mounted commercial harvesters of one and two rows, operating at three forward speeds and two grain moistures. A device was designed and adapted to the machines to collect the material other than grain (MOG) and the indicators analyzed were header loss, separation and cleaning loss, and threshing loss and the quality indicators were: impurity, damage and germination failures. The experiment was conducted as a randomized blocks design disposed in factorial outline 2 x 3, with six replications. There was no effect of treatments related to the losses for the one row harvester. For the two rows harvester there was significant effect in the grain moisture and speed, in relation to all the losses, except to header losses, presenting better results with the lowest grain moisture (16%) and higher forward speed (1.52 m s-1). Related to quality indicators, both harvesters presented better results with the lowest grain moisture in the lowest speed. It was noticed that the procedure for evaluating semi-mounted corn harvesters and the device designed to collect the MOG are efficient but exigent on labor demand.
small farm; mechanization; harvest losses
