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Post Harvest Machinery
- The farmer, in a remuneration point of view, must attend to certain
primary processing operations like threshing, winnowing, cleaning, drying,
grading, polishing, milling etc. With Post harvest technologies appropriate
for cost, time and labour saving towards enhancement of quality and
marketability to his produce by value addition and by products utilization
he should use the related post harvest machinery and equipment. He should
transform himself from more ‘produce’ to ‘producer-cum-processor’
to get more remunerative price and profits by increasing quality by
value addition and efficient utilization of byproducts besides reducing
post harvest losses.
1) Threshing of Paddy by power thresher:
- Power threshers are recommended for threshing paddy crop due to its
multiple advantages like low investment, high threshing efficiency,
low operational cost compared to traditional tractor threshing. It has
additional advantages of simultaneous winnowing and cleaning, besides
threshing. Under utilization of tractor of 35 hp power can be avoided,
as the job of threshing to the same extent could be achieved by expending
only 7-10hp, in case of power thresher. About 5-6 litres of diesel could
be saved, besides increased output of 1-2 bags of paddy which otherwise
goes as threshing loss in case of tractor threshing. Under utilisatoin
of 35 hp tractor for a 10hp, job of threshing, if avoided would go a
long way in public and national perspective by saving fuel energy.
2) Threshing benches:
- Threshing benches either with wire mesh top or with perforated M.S.Sheet
may be used in place of wooded benches for threshing the paddy crop
as they are more efficient and have more service life. Four men can
thresh about 25 bags of paddy in a day. Each threshing bench costs about
Rs.600/-.
3) Winnowing machines for grain cleaning:
- Hand and power operated (Power tiller, tractor or small engine operated)
winnower can separate chaff, dust etc. from grain. About 500-800 kg
of grain can be winnowed in one hour. These machinery are much useful
when wufficient winds (velocity) are not available and during unfavourable
weather conditions.
4) Husk fired furnace dryer for drying of paddy:
- A half ton capacity husk fired furnace type batch dryer can dry paddy
from 25’% moisture content to 13% moisture content in a matter
of 4-5h. It is much useful when sun drying is not practicable in inclement
weather during rainy season and under sudden cyclone threat conditions.
5) Agricultural waste fired chilli dryer and its utilisation
as multipurpose dryer to dry other crops:
- A two quintal capacity chilli dryer designed and developed at this
centre can dry red ripe chillies from 70% moisture content to 15% moisture
content in 20 hours compared to 12-15 days in sun drying. The chillies
dried by this dryer retained colour for a longer time during storage
compared to sun dried produce and are dust free with high quality and
appearance. Drying can be done from the crop refuse or paddy husk. This
dryer could be used as multipurpose dryer from drying other crops like
turmeric, groundnut and coconut.
a) Drying of turmeric
- Drying of turmeric with the chilli dryer is advantageous in time
and cost saving. The result of the trials showed 65.47% of time saving
and 7.8% of cost saving compared to traditional method of sun drying.
It took 58 hours to dry turmeric of 79.24% moisture content to 12.5%
level against 168 hours of time taken for the similar level of drying
in open yard drying.
b) Drying of groundnut
- The rapid chilli dryer was also evaluated for drying groudnut. When
dried at 40-43 0C it took 25 hours compared to 4-5 days required in
open yard sun drying for bringing down the moisture content from 28%
to 8%. There was no adverse effect on germination of the seed of the
produce dried by the chilli dryer.
6. a) Mini Dhal Mill
- The mini dhal mill plant was developed with suitable accessories
and attachments like drying cum-storage bin with husk fired heat exchanger
system, sieve set, mixer for pre-treatment with oil and water to the
CIAE dhal mill thus mechanising all the processing operations involved
in dhal making. It will separate dehusked wholes. It can run with a
3 h.p motor and can mill 150 to 160 kgs of blackgram per hour with 65%
to 70% wholes and 15% to 18% splits recovery, thus about 80% -82% dhal
recovery compared to only 70-75% in traditional method.
b) TANU-Power operated mini dhal mill
- The mini-dhal mill was trail tested. It is capable of splitting 30kg
of blackgram per hour with a recovery of 83.5% split half grains with
12% of brokens. In respect to green gram it can mil 32 kg/hr. with recovery
of 80% splits and 17% brokens.
7) Turmeric Grader
- The ANGRAU turmeric grader designed and developed by this centre
can grade about 400 kg of Turmeric in an hour into four fractions namely
bulbs, fingers (3cm length and above), Polishable Nali (2 to 3cm length)
and unpolishable Nali (less than 2cm length) in a single pass, thus
eliminates tedious and laborious manual grading. This also facilitates
better quality and value addition to get higher remunerative price.
8) Turmeric Polisher
a) Hand operated turmeric polisher
- Hand operated ANGRAU turmeric polisher developed at this centre can
be used for both preliminary and secondary polishing, replacing traditional
method of shuftling and rubbing in gunny bags and use of wooden log
attached palmyrah leaves in bullock trading method. It has the capacity
to polish 500kg of turmeric rhizomes per hour compared to only 100-200
kg/hr in the farmer’s traditional method.
b) Power operated turmeric polisher
- With suitable alterations and further attachments like 2 h.p motor,
V-belt and chain drive mechanism and gear system, the hand operated
turmeric polisher was converted into power operated turmeric polisher.
It can run at 30-32 rpm. with the attachment of gears and V-belt. The
power operated ANGRAU Turmeric polisher can polish about 600-700kg of
turmeric in an hour with 98% polishing efficiency.
9) Low cost measuring device for determining colour intensity
of agricultural produce.
- Colour reflectometer designed and developed at this centre can be
successfully used to determine yellowness of turmeric (curcumin content)
and redness.
10) Batch type rice bran stabilizer for stabilization of
rice bran
- Stabilization of rice bran with rice bran stabilizer at 100 0C for
10minutes controls the increase in free fatty acid up to 28 days in
storage, by inactivation of lipase enzyme. This facilitates extraction
of edible grade oil, thus helps in better utilization of rice bran the
by-product of rice milling industry.
11) Chilli seed extractor
- This machine is used for extracting seed from dry chilles successfully.
Dry chillies (or 11% moisture content) were cut into pieces by the extractor
and are collected at the outlet. Seed is seperated from the pericarp
by a built in separation mechanism. The machine can extract seed in
4 quintals of pods in a day of 8 hours with 99% extraction efficiency.
Thus, it facilitates in elimination of not only physical drudgery but
also scorching and pungency that hinder the extraction in traditional
manual extraction.
12) Safe Storage of groundnut
a) Drying and storage structures
- Groundnut has to be dried to less than 9% moisture for safe storage,
which can be stored in upto 6months without loss of viability and free
from aflatoxin contamination. The groundnut can better be stored in
1) loosely knitted gunny bags 2) compactly knitted gunny bags 3) nylon
bags and 4) polythene lined gunny bags.
b) Viability of groundnut in storage
- TMV-2 variety of groundnut maintained high viability (83%) with lesser
fungal growth (16%) at 240 days of storage while the viability was least
in K-150 (24%) followed by K-3 (21.6%) indicating their unsuitability
for storage as seed. The viability was 79% in K-1186, 73% in K-153 and
67% in K-1143 at 180 days of storage. However the viability of these
varieties drastically fell below 35% level by 240 day of storage.
13) Safe storages of pulses
- Pulses can be safely stored in nylon bags, polythene lined gunny
bags for up to 6months provided the grain is properly dried before storage.
Mixing of 250g of edible oil per quintal of pulses is beneficial in
safe storage.
14) Chilli storage
- Chillies stored in amber coloured polythene bags were found to retain
colour for longer period of storage. Mechanically dried chillies showed
higher colour value in chillies during storage than that open yard sun
dried produce.
15) Biochemical changes in paddy during storage
- Paddy stored up to 10-12 months was found to improve its quality
without change in their milling and culinary properties. However, beyond
18 months of storage, there is deterioration in its milling and culinary
properties.
16) Use of plant origin materials for safe storage of pulses
- Among the different plant origin materials and inert materials tried
against pulse beetle C.maculatus infestation in stored pulses, neem
oil at 0.25% or 0.5% level of mixing with the pulse grain was found
to be the best in preventing the damage of stored pulse up to 195 days
of storage. Mixing of vegetable oils at 0.25% or 0.5% also protected
the pulses from damage by pulse beetle up to 300 days of storage.
17) Cucumin content in stored turmeric varieties
- The curcumin content in stored turmeric varieties progressively decreased
with length of storage period. Among the varieties tested the decrease
in curcumir content in storage was higher with Mydukur followed by PCT-14
and TC-2.
18) Chemical treatment of copra to prevent fungal damage
- Mature coconut halves treated with solutions of 1% acetic acid, sodium
bicarbonate & sodium chloride protected the copra from spoilage
due to fungal infection.
19) Suitability of storage containers for storage of tamarind
- Tamarind gained moisture when stored in mud pots and gunny bags with
reduced total acidity compared to the produce stored in polythene bag,
tetrapack or glass bottle. The acidity of samples stored in tetra pack
was highest followed by polythene bags, whereas it was least in case
of the samples stored in gunny bags followed by mudpots. None of the
structures however could prevent discolouration of stored tamarind,
as it is temperature dependent.
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