Evaluation on air-dried of fluidized bed dryer for rice pre-treatment to control stored insect pests

Abstract

An integrated pest management of stored insect pests play an important role in helping the growth of the rice industry. Among the methods that can be exploited is to use air-dried treatment. A study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of air-dried treatment on MRQ76 fragrant milled rice at MARDI Pendang, Kedah Malaysia. The sources of air-dried treatment method that has been used in this study from the batch type fluidized bed dryer. A total of five different temperatures namely 30 °C, 40 °C, 50 °C, 60 °C and 70 °C were tested with a treatment time of 300 seconds for each temperature. MRQ76 rice samples were then packed using low-density polyethylene (LDPE) plastic and seven packs of rice samples for each treatment were stored for evaluation of treatment effects on insect pests. It was found that 55.2% of mortality was recorded on treatment with a temperature of 30 °C and 64.9% mortality of total insect at 40 °C. While 100% mortality were recorded at temperatures of 50 °C, 60 °C and 70 °C. The experiment, however found that the air-dried treatment given direct to the milled rice would implicate rice physiochemical quality. Thus, further study is recommended, perhaps by combining the air-dried treatment with other parameters.