• Saša BaraćFaculty of Agriculture, Lešak, University of Priština (Kosovska Mitrovica), Serbia
• Aleksandar ĐikićFaculty of Agriculture, Lešak, University of Priština (Kosovska Mitrovica), Serbia
• Ivica MihajlovićSchool of Agriculture, Priština – Lešak, Serbia
• Milan BiberdžićFaculty of Agriculture, Lešak, University of Priština (Kosovska Mitrovica), Serbia
• Bojana MilenkovićFaculty of Agriculture, Lešak, University of Priština (Kosovska Mitrovica), Serbia
• Miroljub AksićFaculty of Agriculture, Lešak, University of Priština (Kosovska Mitrovica), Serbia

DOI: 

https://doi.org/10.7251/AGRSR1402173B

Abstract

Mercantile potato harvesting is an operation that requires a quality work of potato diggers, because of the possible damage to tubers caused by the working body that can affect the quality and duration of the storage of tubers. For potatoes harvesting, the best effects are expressed by single-row and double-row diggers with a conveyor belt. This paper presents the re­sults of exploitation tests on various potato diggers used for mercantile potato harvesting in the ecological conditions of northern Kosovo and Me­tohia. The aim of our study was to determine the quality of the work of potato diggers, the power consumption and surface effect. On the basis of these results, it was concluded that the total loss of potato tubers was between 5.01% (565.7 kg ha-1) and 11.50% (1,291.2 kg ha-1) according to the yields in the studied plots. During the testing the digger generated effects ranged from 0.10 ha h-1 up to 0.28 ha h-1, with an average fuel consumption of 12.60 l ha-1 up to 19.20 l ha-1.