Comprehensive Comparison on the Performance of Four Tea Harvesting Machines in the Harvesting of Premium Tea
To optimize equipment selection for premium tea harvesting,a comprehensive assessment of four tea harvesting machines in Zhejiang was conducted to compare their operational efficiency,picking quality and operating costs.The results reveal that the dual-person tea-harvesting machine exhibited the best speed and efficiency in operation.However,its quality for premium tea was suboptimal,with a yield of only 22.5%for one bud and one or two leaves.On the other hand,the efficiency of single-person tea-harvesting machine was not as good as that of the dual-person tea-harvesting machine,but the picking quality was good,achieving a yield of 40.7%for one bud and one or two leaves.The electric drive portable tea-harvesting machine had economic advantages with a picking cost of 14.69 yuan per 667 m2.Nev-ertheless,its yield of one bud and one or two leaves was not as high as that of the single-person tea-harvesting machine,but better than the dual-person tea-harvesting machine.The hand held high-quality tea picking machine had the highest picking quality,but the picking efficiency was the lowest.Considering the balance between speed and harvested leaf quality,it is advisable to adopt the traditional single-person tea-harvesting machine as the equipment for premium tea gardens in actual production.