Pantnagar Journal of Research

Abstract

Maize production is the second major activity adopted by the farmer because of its several advantages on different fields. Concerning the maize production a maize sheller was developed .The sheller is evaluated for three different varieties of maize Shresta NHM 731, Angad 1217 and NK30 and each variety is divided into two categories based on the length of maize cob i.e., Category A (maize length less than 12 cm) and category B (maize length greater than 12 cm).The developed sheller has total weight 79.5 kg and the unit cost of the machine is Rs 17150/. The performance of manual plucking and hand held shelling (hexagonal hand held sheller) is also evaluated for comparison. The output capacity of developed sheller was evaluated at three different feedings and 2.5 kg maize feeding was found highest among all the feeding. The shelling efficiency and output capacity of variety Angad 1217 Category A were found maximum 99.45% and 174.33 kg/h respectively. Percentage of unshelled grain on maize sheller was found on variety Shresta NHM 731 category A was highest 1.62. The highest cleaning efficiency was found on variety NK30 category B 99.20 percent. The operational cost of developed sheller is 44.771 Rs/h. The cost required to shell 1 kg of maize cob was found Rs 0.226. The total operational cost of the hand shelling (manual plucking) and hand held sheller was found 37.5 Rs/ h. shelling of 1 kg of maize into maize grain required 3.05 Rs/kg in case of manual plucking and 1.37 Rs/kg in case of hand held sheller.