Pre-extension Demonstration and Evaluation of Engine Driven Sorghum Thrasher Technology in the Selected AGP-II Districts of Harari region and Dire Dawa Administration

Abdulaziz Teha

doi:10.7176/fsqm/97-05

Abstract

An engine driven sorghum thresher was designed and developed in Fedis Agricultural Research Center with a view to increase the threshing efficiency, threshing capacity and to reduce the cost of threshing in comparison with traditional methods of threshing sorghum crop. The machine was demonstrated in Harari Region and Dire Dawa administration council. The result indicated that the average efficiency, output capacity were 88.97 to 97.08%, 6 to 8.36qt/ha and grain damage less than 1%.Sorghum is also the most widely cultivated and consumed cereals in Ethiopia. According to (CSA, 2008), it ranks third after maize and tef in total production, after maize in yield per hectare and after tef and maize in area harvested. Currently sorghum is produced by 5million holders and its production is estimated to be 4 million metric tons from nearly 2million hectares of land giving the national average grain yield of around 2 tons per hectares (CSA, 2012). In fact sorghum is not only drought-resistant, it can also withstand periods of water logging (Taylor, 2010).Hence Fadis Agricultural Research Center developed complete sorghum threshing machine and demonstrate to overcome sorghum threshing challenges such as beating with stick, moving tractor on sorghum as it take longtime, consume human energy consuming, hardly detach the grain from sorghum head, thereby decreasing tremendous sorghum grain post-harvest loss because of traditional threshing method Keywords: Sorghum Thrasher, Engine driven, Demonstration, Harari and Dire Dawa DOI: 10.7176/FSQM/97-05 Publication date: May 31 st 2020

Highlights

Sorghum, Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench, is the fifth most important cereal after rice, wheat, maize, and barley
In some places in India, a common practice for threshing the grain is to place it on the road for vehicles to run over (Simonyan, 2006).A motorized stationary sorghum thresher was developed and tested
Materials and Methods Description of the study area Pre-extension demonstration of sorghum thrasher technology was conducted in Agricultural growth program-II nationally selected districts of Harari region and Dire Dawa administration council

Summary

Introduction

Sorghum bicolor (L) Moench, is the fifth most important cereal after rice, wheat, maize, and barley. It constitutes the main food grain for over 750 million people who live in the semi-arid tropics of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In some places in India, a common practice for threshing the grain is to place it on the road for vehicles to run over (Simonyan, 2006).A motorized stationary sorghum thresher was developed and tested. ).The improved small-engine driven sorghum thresher was designed and produced at Fadis Agricultural Research Center with an intention to solve critical threshing problem of farmers consecutively reducing cost of threshing, labor power and grain loss (Tekalign, 2018) this activity is aimed at demonstrating and evaluate engine driven Sorghum thrasher technology to the target area The performance variables investigated were: threshing efficiency, cleaning efficiency and cleaning loss (Simonyan, 2009). ).The improved small-engine driven sorghum thresher was designed and produced at Fadis Agricultural Research Center with an intention to solve critical threshing problem of farmers consecutively reducing cost of threshing, labor power and grain loss (Tekalign, 2018) this activity is aimed at demonstrating and evaluate engine driven Sorghum thrasher technology to the target area

Objectives

Methods

Results