Green cane harvesting is preferred by many sugar cane growing countries despite the fact that harvesting unburnt sugar cane is more arduous and slower than haversting burnt c ane. Many attempts h ave been made throughout the world to develop acceptable mechanical green cane harvesting systems and t he results of some of these are described. In South Africa green cane harvesting has distinct advantages and t he Experiment Station of the S outh African S ugar Association has, f or some years, been involved in the development o f appropriate mechanic1 harvesting alternatives. The so-called Sasaby forms the basis of. a completely mechanical wholestalk harvesting system which, by December 1981, was appr5aching commercially acceptable levels of performance. The second system is semi-mechanized and incorporates a simple cutter with a manual retrieval and stacking system. The quality of cane harvested by both these systems compares favourably with that of manually harvested cane while total cane losses are also acceptable.