Abstract: We designed a southern plastic film recovery machine aiming at the difficulty of separation of soil and film and meeting the agronomic requirements in southern area. Considering the working principle of the machine, we carried out the single factor test and multi-factor orthogonal test for three factors which affect the performance of film and soil separation, i.e. the lifting angle of pricking components, the moving speed of the machine and the elongation of used film. The results show that the lifting angle of the pricking components has a significant effect on the soil film separation performance of the used film recovery machine. When the lifting angle of the film pricking parts is 35 degrees, the moving speed of the machine is 5 km/h, and the elongation of used film is set to 30%, plastic film recovery rate is above 95% and the entrained soil quality is below 0.50 kg/m. This machine conforms to the operation conditions in southern area, overcomes the difficulty of separating used film from soil, and meets the requirements of residual film recovery.