International Journal of Agricultural Engineering

D. B. Naveen Kumar ¹, Prasanna Kumar ¹, H. S. Arun Kumar ¹, T. N. Sandeep ¹, G. Sudhadevi ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Agricultural Engineering, University Agricultural Sciences, G.K.V.K., Bengaluru Karnataka, IN

Abstract

The research was conducted on efficiency of mechanical thresher over traditional method of threshing finger millet. Finger millet (Eleusine Coracana Craertn) commonly known as ragi is one of the important small millet crop grown in red soil areas of India. It is predominantly cultivated in southern parts of Karnataka. The process of seed damage starts right from harvest to storage. The traditional methods of threshing are tedious time consuming and inefficient in operation. The experiment was conducted with two ragi varieties (MR1 and HR911). Hence, mechanical threshing is a means to overcome the above problems. So as to evaluate the performance efficiency of mechanical thresher over traditional method of threshing finger millet and optimum threshing parameters for finger millet. Some of the important parameters which influence the threshing efficiency, mechanical damage, moisture content, threshing cylinder speed, feeding rate and concave clearance. The method of threshing was experimented at three different moisture content levels of ragi [around 18 to 19, 13 to 15 and 10% (w.b.)]. The mechanical ragi thresher has given the maximum grains output of 140.5 kg/h for variety MR1 and 130.3 kg/h for variety for HR911 as compared to traditional threshing methods.

Keywords

Finger Millet, Rasp Bar Thresher, Stone Roller, Moisture Content, Ragi Varieties

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H. S. Arun Kumar ¹, D. B. Naveen Kumar ¹, G. Sudha Devi ¹, V. Palanimuthu ¹, T. N. Sandeep ¹

Affiliations
1 Department of Agricultural Engineering, University of Agricultural Sciences, G.K.V.K., Bengaluru Karnataka, IN

Abstract

The economic interest has made many countries of the world to encourage the cultivation of cashew and it is fast becoming an export produce in many developing countries. The necessary processing operations needed for cashewnut before obtaining the standard exportable quality of edible cashew kernel require lot of time, materials and human resources. This study considers the shelling capacity, shelling efficiency, shelling percentage, broken kernel percentage and wholeness of kernels obtainable by varying the steaming pressure (0.0, 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 and 2.5 kgcm-2) and steaming duration (15, 20, 25, 30 and 35 min). The cashewnuts were steamed in steam cooker and kept in ambient temperature for 20 to 24h for tempering. The dried nuts were shelled using automatic cashew sheller. The automatic cashewnut sheller recorded maximum shelling capacity (18.40 kg per hour), shelling efficiency (80.66 %), shelling percentage (31.74 %), whole kernel recovery (85.47 %) and broken kernel percentage (14.53 %), respectively at 0.0 kg / cm2 for 30 min.

Keywords

Automatic Cashew Sheller, Cashewnuts, Pretreatment, Shelling Parameters

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