Design of throw-in type rice thresher for small scale farmers

Abstract

Threshing is an integral part of postharvest activities for cereal and legume crops. In many developing countries, threshing is carried out manually by farmers that lead to low quality of paddy rice and grain loss. When the rice production increases, consequently the manual threshing becomes arduous. In order to mechanize this process, a throw-in type thresher JEP based on a prototype of a thresher made by IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) was designed and tested. The wind board was modified after testing to enhance threshing quality. Also, in place of welding the whole machine is joined by bolts, nuts and rivets for easy assembling and disassembling. Output capacity from the performance test on the machine was 316 kg/hr at a moisture content of 21%wb (wet base) for IR28 rice variety. This could attain 350-400 kg/hr when both, the speed and the feeding speed increase. The overall results are impressive and it will help improve drudgery and threshing challenges with small scale farmers.