I'HKORY AND APPLICATION OF CROP THRESHING TECHNOLOGIES R.S. Devnani T.P. Ojha WjP 31H}1 ICAR Indian Council of Agricultural Research New Delhi Theory and Application of Crop Threshing Technologies Theory and Application of Crop Threshing Technologies R.S. Devnani and T.P. Ojha ICAR Published by Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture Indian Council of Agricultural Research Krishi Anusandhan Bhavan I, Pusa, New Delhi 110 012 Printed : July 2016 Project Director (DKMA) Dr Rameshwar Singh Incharge (English Editorial Unit) Dr Aruna T. Kumar Editing Madhu Aggarwal Chief Production Officer DrV.K. Bharti Assistant Chief Technical Officer (Production) Punit Bhasin All rights reserved ©2016, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi ISBN : 978-81-7164-161-1 Price : ? 650 Published by Dr Rameshwar Singh, Project Director, Directorate of Knowledge Management in Agriculture, Indian Council of Agricultural Research, Pusa, New Delhi 110012; Lasertypeset at M/s Print-O-World, 2579, Mandir Lane, Shadipur, New Delhi 110 008, and printed at M/s Chandu Press, 63, Patparganj Industrial Estate, Delhi 110 092. Preface T HE present day agricultural technologies are to increase the yield levels from 2.0 to 10 tonnes per hectare, but they are not readily adopted as farmers' fear that modern changes and mechanization would create problems of social, economic and environmental type. To meet the increased food requirements of the growing and large population, the countries have to produce at local level or allow the import of produce from other countries to meet the demand of people in urban areas. The Government of India, through the Indian Council of Agricultural Research, New Delhi, launched the coordinated project on Research and Development of farm machinery and their suitability for different regions during 1965, for development, testing and popularization of farm machines on basis of local needs and agro-ecological conditions. This approach was followed because of the very weak economic conditions of the farmers in many regions. The local manufacturing was encouraged to reduce the final cost of machines essential for the farmers, as this eliminated the cost of transport and handling etc. It helped the farmers to directly interact with the manufacturer or fabricator to meet their requirements. The International Rice Research Institute at Los Banos, Philippines was established during early sixties and they started developing rice production technologies for the small farmers of Asia. The agricultural engineering work conducted at IRRI resulted in development of much equipment for the crop establishment, interculture, plant protection, threshing and rice processing operations. The axial flow thresher for threshing of wet crop of rice was developed and popularized in many Asian countries. The UNDP (ESC AP) started the net-work project as Regional Network for Agricultural Mechanization (RNAM) located at Philippines on popularization of agricultural machinery in Asian countries in 1978. The emphasis was to mechanize with machines useful for establishment, threshing and harvesting of crops. This program helped in identifying the most useful machines used by farmers and strength of the development activities in many countries. It helped the countries to get the man power suitably trained in advanced countries. It helped the small scale manufacturers to organize their activities for the benefit of famers. All these efforts resulted in development of appropriate equipment in these countries to mechanize agriculture. The present book highlights the developments on thresher and threshing of many crops in many Asian, African and Latin American countries where effect of green revolution are visible. The machines from advanced countries were not compatible to their situations both from socio- economic conditions and technical levels. It was a challenging job for the designers to closely look to farmers' demands and make machines to suit their needs and not the machine which had high capacity resulting in low cost of operation. The high capacity crop threshing machines from advanced countries can perform the job in less time and at low cost. However, even in present situations, they are acceptable only for custom hiring purpose, as they take away work or jobs from the farm workers. The sustainable life can be maintained only when people are in harmony with the nature and society. This is particularly applicable to farming communities in many Asian, African and Latin American countries. Therefore, the development of agriculture would require appropriate machines which would help in sustaining the ecosystem and needs of the rural population. The authors have compiled the large number of designs of threshers and shellers of different types suitable for many crops grown by the small farm holders with land holdings in the range of 0.4 ha up to 20 ha. For the farmers in Asian, African countries getting all the grain and the straw of the crop is important to them, as straw is used as animal feed. Presently the value of straw is close to 50 to 60 % the value of grain in India. Thus farmers' survive even with such a small size machines and farm holdings as they utilize all the components of crops. Hence, the threshers and machines developed and accepted by the farmers as reported in the book would help the extension engineers and fabricators to popularize mechanize threshing operation. The aim should be to develop and introduce appropriate machines to promote their use which are in harmony with the ecological and social system followed by the farmers and small scale fabricators and need not be solely based on the least cost basis or on the size of farm. The need for appropriate agricultural machines is felt more acutely when there is reduction in farm labour due to migration to urban centres and intensive agriculture is followed. Thus, mechanization is usually more intense near urban areas. Often the need is to have a multi-purpose machine on the farm because single-purpose machine have low rates of utilization. The information on such low cost threshing technologies developed and popularized is made available in this book. The aim is to help farmers use the machines to reduce the drudgery. It is hoped that it would serve the purpose of mechanization of threshing operation at all levels of farm holders in most of the developing countries. R.S. Devnani andT.P. Ojha Contents Preface v 1. Introduction 1 2. Thresher Classification and its Components 9 3. Rice Threshing and Threshers 16 4. Radial Flow or Hammer Mill Type Wheat Threshers 40 5. Cross Flow Threshers 55 6. Theory of Threshing 66 7. Maize Shellers 87 8. Threshing of Coarse Cereals 95 9. Threshing of Pulse Crops 103 10. Threshing of Oilseeds Crops 124 11. Extraction of Plant Fibres 150 12. Design Principles for Threshing Units 164 13. Design Principles for Cleaning Shoe 192 14. Thresher for Experimental Studies 210 15. Power Transmission System 218 16. Material of Construction 222 17. Testing Procedures of Threshers 225 18. Ergonomic Studies 234 19. Noise, Vibration, and Dust Control 247 20. Installation, Operation and Maintenance of Threshers 257 21. Standards for Threshers 261 References 265 Appendix I: Botanical and Local Names of the Crops 270 Appendix II: History of development of threshers and shellers in India 272 from 1930 up to 2008 Appendix III: List of RNAM countries involved in Research and Development 275 of threshers and shellers and other farm machines. Appendix IV: List of Institutes involved in Research and Development and 276 popularization of threshing and other agricultural machinery in India Appendix V: List of Abbreviations Used 279 Index 281 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2018 https://archive.org/details/theoryapplicatioOOOOdevn