Number of mechanical operations in the coffee harvest/Numero de operacoes mecanizadas na colheita do cafe

Performing more than one operation of coffee harvester can increase fruit harvest efficiency by minimizing the amount of remaining plants and the need for manual transfer. This manual harvest makes often more expensive the production process and promote more damage to the plants in relation to mechanization. However, it should know how many operations it is necessary to completely harvest the fruits of the trees, in fields that have different production loads, especially the higher loads, since they are more difficult to be fully harvested. Therefore, the aim of this study was to assess the number of harvester operations in two coffee plantations, for an efficient harvesting. Two situations were compared: crop with intermediate load (50.78 benefited coffee bags [ha.sup.-1]) and tillage with high load (121.54 benefited coffee bags [ha.sup.-1]) on the Cerrado Mineiro region, using one to six operations of a KTR harvester. It was used a randomized block design with four replications. The number of fallen coffee, remainned harvested and harvesting efficiency were evaluated. It was found that for the remainned amount of coffee plants, to dispense the manual harvest it is required three operations of coffee harvester at high loads and two at intermediate loads. Regardless of the coffee load, using three or more harvester operations, a larger amount of fruits was harvested, without differing in crop harvest efficiency with two operations. Key words: coffee growing, harvesting efficiency, mechanization. A realizacao de mais de uma operacao da colhedora de cafe pode aumentar a eficiencia de colheita dos frutos, minimizando a quantidade de cafe remanescente nas plantas e a necessidade de repasse manual. O repasse manual comumente encarece o processo de producao e promove maiores danos as plantas em relacao a colheita mecanizada. Entretanto, deve-se conhecer qual numero de operacoes da colhedora e necessario para derricar completamente os frutos dos cafeeiros, em lavouras que apresentem diferentes cargas produtivas, notadamente as de cargas mais elevadas, por apresentarem maior dificuldade em serem totalmente colhidas. Portanto, objetivou-se, com este trabalho, avaliar o numero de operacoes da colhedora, em duas lavouras de cafe, para uma colheita eficiente. Foram comparadas duas situacoes: lavoura com carga intermediaria (50,78 sacas de cafe ben [ha.sup.-1]) e lavoura com carga alta (121,54 sacas de cafe ben [ha.sup.-1]), na regiao do Cerrado Mineiro, utilizando de