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During the last decade the harvesting sector has faced an unprecedented cost-price squeeze from
rising capital, parts and fuel costs and labour availability. This has been compounded by a run of poor
seasons which has impacted on harvester productivity.
The harvesting sector is responding to these issues through a number of alternative design
considerations to the standard Australian machine. These include modifications to suit a number of
row spacings and wide-swath harvesting.
Sugarcane harvesting is undertaken over a relatively long period (June to December), across a large
geographic area (sub-tropics, dry-tropics, wet-tropics, varied soil types) along a narrow coastal strip
with rainfall averages above 1000 mm per year. Hence, it is inevitable that harvesting will be
conducted during or after periods of wet-weather. To cater for this, the sugarcane harvester is
available in tracked configuration.
2.2.1 Row Spacing
In conventional sugarcane farming systems, sugarcane is often grown on rows 1.5 m apart however
there is significant variance, with large proportions of the crop in India, China and the traditional
production areas in Brazil being on 1.0 m row spacing. The Case IH Austoft 7000 and 7700 cane
harvesters have a wheel centre of 1860 mm and a track centre of 1880 mm respectively. Case IH
7000/7700 machines built prior to 2003 have a throat width of 900 mm. Machines built after 2003
have a throat width of 1080 mm. The Cameco (2500 series) and John Deere (3500 series) both have a
wheel and track centre of 1880 mm. Cameco 2500 series have a throat width of 900 mm whilst, John
Deere 3500 series machines have a throat width of 1000 mm. Therefore, current machinery is too
much of an agronomic compromise for the current 1.5 m system (Figure 2.4).
A number of controlled traffic row spacings have been adopted throughout the Australian industry.
There are a number of slight variations to these but the most common include 1.85 m wheel spacing
with single row and dual row, 2 m wheel spacing with dual rows at 800 mm centres, 2.4 m wheel
spacing with dual rows at 1200 mm and a 3 m wheel spacing with dual rows at 1.5 m spacing.
Figure 2.5 illustrates the 1.85 m wheel spacing configuration with dual rows. This spacing utilises
current equipment and only requires minor modifications to the machines. Dual rows allow about a
23% increase in throughput at the same ground speed, however from an agronomic perspective the
dual row at 500 mm is undesirable.
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