An Improved Method of Direct Ear Head Threshing of Standing Paddy Crop through Self-Propelled Thresher

Abstract

The unique method of direct ear-head threshing was initially tested in laboratory and then implemented in the field. The direct ear head thresher was affordable for medium-scale farmers which helped in maintaining the timeliness of agricultural operations with reduced labor. It consisted of four sets of crop guiding plates, wire-loop threshing cylinder and collecting tray. The guiding plates gather the ear-heads of upright plants and gradually place them over the rotating cylinder. The grains got separated due the cylinder impact and collected in the tray placed below the cylinder. Thus the straw intake reduces during threshing. It was a self-propelled walk-behind machine equipped with a 3.7 kW gasoline engine and threshes four rows in a single pass. The performance of developed thresher was evaluated under actual field conditions. It was operated at cylinder speed and forward speed of 18.94 m s-1 and 0.8 km h-1, respectively. The threshing efficiency, grain throughput capacity, and total grain loss were 98.86%, 346.50 kg h-1, and 4.20%, respectively. The effective field capacity, fuel consumption, labor-time requirement and cost of operation were 0.065 ha h-1, 0.96 l h-1, 16 man-h ha-1 and ₹ 3462 ha-1, respectively.