Evaluation of Methods to Reduce Harvest-to- Crush Delays Using a Simulation Model

Long delays between the harvesting and crushing of sugarcane and the associated deterioration of cane quality have long been recognised as a major source of loss to the sugar industry. Different methods of reducing harvest-to-crush delays need to be evaluated without expensive and time consuming experimentation on real world harvesting and delivery systems. A joint project between the Agricultural Research Council, Institute for Agricultural Engineering, the South African Sugar Association Experiment Station and the School of Bioresource Engineering and Environmental Hydrology of the University of Natal was therefore initiated to develop a computer based model which could be used to evaluate different methods of reducing harvest-to-crush delays. This project was run as a Masters degree project and is documented fully in Barnes, (1999), Barnes, (1999), Barnes AJ, Hansen et al, (1997), Barnes et al (1998), Barnes et al, (1997), Hansen et al, (1998), Hansen et al, (1998), Barnes et al, (1999).