UJALA, ANIL KUMAR*, SUNDEEP KUMAR, RAJENDER KUMAR, SURESH KUMAR AND RAKESH KUMAR
Department of Farm Machinery & Power Engineering
Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Panipat (Haryana)
Deprtment of Basic Engineering
Directorate of Research
Department of Genetics & Plant Breeding
CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Hisar-125 004 (Haryana), India
*(e-mail : anil_saroha@rediffmail.com)
(Received : 1 February 2020; Accepted : 20 March 2020)
SUMMARY
There is a big gap in demand and supply of fodder/feed for the increasing livestock in India, which calls for the use of unconventional sources as fodder/feed for livestock. Rice-wheat is the major cropping system in Indo-genetic plains of India and now-a-days more than 75% area is combine harvested. Wheat straw is used for feeding the livestock, but most of the combine harvested rice straw is burnt in the fields due to less turnaround time between harvesting and planting of subsequent crop and non-availability of suitable machines for its management/removal from the field. If rice straw can be removed from the field with proper machinery and treated for improving its digestibility for feeding the livestock, the gap between demand and supply may be bridged. The tractor drawn paddy straw reaper was evaluated at farmers field at Ludas village of Hisar district for optimization of machine parameters viz., cylinder speed (550, 750 and 950 rpm), forward speed (1.0, 1.5 and 2.0 km/h) and crop parameter viz., moisture content (20.8 to 50.2 %) in relation to field capacity, fuel consumption, straw size and straw recovery in paddy variety Pusa-44. The field capacity, fuel consumption, straw size and straw recovery at optimum conditions were 0.20 ha h-1, 5.66 l ha-1, 3.46 cm and 62.89 %, respectively. Moisture content of 20.8 per cent, forward speed of 1.5 km h-1 and cylinder speed of 950 rpm was found optimum for paddy variety Pusa-44.
Key words:Paddy straw reaper, cylinder speed, field capacity, forward speed, fuel consumption, moisture content