Performance of Three DifferentSpades for Residual Plastic Film Recycling Machine

Highlights Effectively separating the “white pollution” from agricultural soil. Three different spades for mechanical recycling residual film were tested. All spades had a similar draft requirement and soil disturbance trend. Spade A provided a higher residual film recovery rate. Abstract. Plastic film mulching cultivation provides important support for increasing the crop yield and ensuring food security, but residual plastic film pollution has become a prominent problem affecting the sustainable development of agriculture especially in northwest China. Recovery of thicker film by residual plastic film recycling machines may represent an effective way to solve this problem. In this study, a combined implement comprising three different spades (spades A, B, and C) were tested in a cotton field to compare their performance. All three types of spades were tested at a travel speed of 4.5 kmh -1 and a working depth of 40 mm. The residual plastic film recovery rate, soil draft force, soil disturbance characteristics (furrow profile), and cotton stubble uprooting were measured. Spade B had a higher draft force than the other spades. This trend was also observed for the soil disturbance area. Spades A and C produced stubble uprooting of approximately 5%, and spade B resulted in an approximately 5.7% larger degree of uprooting. Spade A had the largest recovery rate of residual film, while spade C had the smallest one. Overall, considering both recovery rate of residual film and draft force requirement, spade A showed better performance compared to spades B and C. Keywords: Draft force, Residual plastic film, Recovery rate, Soil disturbance, Spade.