A single impact device was used to determine the minimum impact speed for a
standard 5 mm rectangular harvester blade to complete a cut without causing unacceptable damage to the cane. A kinematic model was developed for the peripheral
blade speed during harvesting as a function of the basecutter rotational and the
harvester forward speeds. To avoid contact between the basecutter disks and stalks
prior to completion of the cut, upper limits were set for the harvester forward speed
to avoid cane damage. A model was developed to predict the number of stalks likely
to sustain a large split resulting from partial cuts as a function of the basecutter and
harvester speeds. The predicted portion of split stalks was converted to a predicted
cane loss of billet fragments. A set of typical harvester and crop parameters was
used to demonstrate the harvester forward speed which will avoid or minimise cane
damage for various basecutter rotational speeds. Cane losses due to splits from
partial cuts of bent stalks are predicted to be as high as 4% of the harvestable crop.
By optimising the harvester forward speed, the minimum cane loss can be reduced
to just over 1 %.