Improving productivity through Mechanization

The research team has fully developed a banana farming process suitable for Mechanical and design conditions, successfully manufacturing machinery and equipment for key stages, such as: Banana growing machines for tissue culture combined with fertilizers; plant spraying equipment for compound plant protection; equipment to support the harvest and transportation of banana bunches in the fields; processors for processing the trunk, leaves, and roots of bananas after harvest.

The mechanical process has been recognized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment as a technical advance.

In particular, banana growers for tissue culture achieve a yield of 800-900 trees/hour, equivalent to 0.34 hectares/hour, ensuring a distance of 1.5-2m, a distance of 1.7-2m and a fertilizer content of 0.33kg/crop. Plant protection spraying equipment can spray the entire field with a yield of more than 0.61ha/hour or spray in each room with 418 rooms/hour, containers containing 1,000 liters, pressure 1.5-2bar, allowing even coverage of leaves and banana bunches, greatly reducing the number of workers directly exposed to chemicals.

The harvesting and transportation support system uses specialized hanging rails and clippers, achieving cutting and loading output of 215 cams/hour, rotating up to 10 tons/hour in the plains and 6 tons/hour in the steep hills, with a rail length of up to 1,500m, and a load of 200kg/m. The post-harvest banana trunk, leaf, and stem processing machine has a crushed yield of 0.34 hectares/hour, the length of the shredded pieces is about 171mm, helping the by-products to quickly decompose and return organic matter to the soil.

To verify the feasibility, the topic of implementing two application models synchronously using processes and equipment: One model in Tam Diep (Ninh Binh) with a scale of 15.36 hectares and one model in Mang Yang (Gia Lai) with a scale of 30.22 hectares. The results show that all indicators have met or exceeded the target: Reduced 40-42% of labor force, reduced 26-27% of production costs, increased productivity 11-12.5%, reduced post-harvest losses 9-12.6%. Economic efficiency increased by 38.4% in the plains and up to 75.58% in the mountainous areas - where transportation and labor costs are often higher.

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