Abstract
We observed the influence of the components of the header on soybean plants during harvesting by employing a high-speed video camera. The stalks fell forward when the reel did not gather them, resulting in shattered pods. We next constructed a harvesting simulator based on data on analysis of reel displacement, intra-row spacing, and the height of the soybean plants. The results showed the ratio of the stalks gathered to be below 42% and the ratio of the stalks pushed forward to be below 18% under normal combine operation, suggesting that it is important to clarify the optimum use conditions of reel and to degree the forward speed of stalks, since when the reel does not gather the stalks, the overall gathering rate of stalks is low, causing high harvesting losses.
