Chipping bucket – a new and feasible approach for fragmentation of oil palm trunk

Abstract

The disposal of oil palm trunk (OPT) congregated from old and senile plantations has been pointed out as one of the major constraints during land clearing process with respect to cost and drudgery involved. Traditionally, the existing practice followed by farmers includes excavation using crawler type excavator (JCB), followed by dragging and dumping in the peripherals of the plantation. Realizing the nutrient status of OPT, their disposal difficulties and to devoid other environmental issues, a chipping bucket attachment was fabricated for the same model excavator to enhance easy fragmentation and rapid in situ decomposition of the congregated OPT. The chipping bucket method effectively minimized the cost of land clearance by 24% compared to the existing practice followed by farmers. To estimate the cost of clearance per unit palm, an equation was derived using palm height and chipping time. The equation obtained was validated for significant R2 value (0.923). The equation thus derived would help farmers as well as excavator operators in estimating land clearance cost for the standing oil palm plantations. This machine effectively reduced the trunk disposal cost from 1.54 to 1 time compared to the existing land clearance method.