Determination of a Basis for Design of a Yam (Dioscorea Spp.) Minisett Sorter

It has been experimentally demonstrated that the practice of planting a mixture of yam minisetts cut from the head, middle and tail portions of the tuber results in non-uniformity in sprouting and widely different germination rates and tuber yields. This problem could be overcomed by separating the minisetts into groups from the head, middle and tail portions of the parent tubbers and planting them separately. Manual separation is both tedious and expensive, so the work reported here was done to determine a suitable basis for the design of a mechanical minisett sorter. Results from this study showed that the minisetts cut from the regions of the parent tuber can be separated on the basis of characteristic dimensions of arc length or radius. This may provide a suitable basis for designing a mechanical sorter for yam minisetts

Development of Oscillating Classifiers for Forage Chop Length Determination

The chop length produced by forage harvesting systems is an important factor in many aspects of silage production. The only reliable method being tedious hand measurement of every particle in a sample of chopped material. Three oscillating particle length classifiers have been developed. Each of them differed from one another in their stroke patterns. The three different drive-mechanisms produce three screen motions: Linear motion, Under-arc motion and Gyratory motion. Effects of the stroke patterns on forage particle size separation is studied by using identical screen boxes. A procedure for calculating forage particle size is defined. The size of the particles are reported in terms of geometric mean length and geometric standard deviation by weight.The particle size determined is used to evaluate forage harvesting machine and to define forage characteristics with regards to animal feeding trials

A Survey of Farm Tractor Management in Zamfara State

Maintenance is a key element in the management of any machinery firm. This study addresses the problem of Farm Tractors maintenance in Zamfara State. A survey was carried out to determine the level of agricultural machinery management. Information used was obtained from the State Ministry of Agriculture, State Tractor Hiring and Sales Agency (ZSTHSA), and through personal visits to the 14 Local Government Areas of the State. Data were also obtained from answers to a structured questionnaire, personal contact and oral interviews with the management staff, technical staff, tractor operators and some randomly selected farmers within the State. The obtained data was analyzed using relevant statistical tools. Simple descriptive statistical tools such as averages, percentages were used. The result revealed that the State owned 77 functional farm tractors (60.2% of the total owned farm tractors). Spare parts are not available, owned tractors do not reach their economic life, there is no single fully equipped tractor maintenance workshop in the State, maintenance records are not kept, there is lack of technical knowledge of operating and maintaining tractors, and frequent changes of the managerial staff due to some political reasons and non-adherence to the established government policies. Finally, recommendations were giving that will help improve the machinery maintenance.Keywords: farm tractor, maintenance, management, mechanization, survey stud

Tractability Conditions for Disc Ploughing on a Loamy Sand Soil in the Ilorin Agro-Ecological Zone

For agricultural field operations such as tillage and planting, an agricultural soil is considered tractable if it can develop adequate shear resistance to minimize tyre slip and soil damage and can produce required soil tilth without undue soil pulverization or the formation of large clods. Furthermore, the soil must be devoid of physical obstructions like stones, stumps, ant-hills, etc and be of a light vegetative cover. Tractability conditions for disc ploughing on a loamy sand soil based on soil moisture have been determined for Ilorin agro-ecological zone, which fall within the Guinea Savannah zone of Nigeria. This was achieved by carrying out disc ploughing on an experimental plot at thirteen different soil moisture levels ranging from 8.90 to 91.74% of field capacity. The tyre slip and wheel sinkage measured at each soil moisture level, were used to judge whether the soil was tractable or not. Soil is adjudged tractable if the observed tyre slip is either 15% or less. The corresponding soil moisture range was selected as the soil moisture condition at which the soil is tractable. It was found that the loamy sand soil of Ilorin agro- ecological zone was tractable between soil moisture levels of 8.90 and 60.08% of field capacity. Results showed that differences in soil moisture distribution along the slope of the land had no significant (P< 0.05) effect on the towing force and the drawbar pull of the tractor. However, differences in soil moisture levels had significant effect on them. Furthermore, data such as towing force, drawbar pull, soil cone index and tyre slip generated and analyzed using regression analysis, were used to establish empirical trafficability prediction equations; which are useful in studies of soil-machine interactions

Biophysical and Mechanical properties of rice varieties: attributes to losses in post harvest processing

The work showcases that at moisture content range (15 - 18%) wb, the compressive force against natural position of the grains were also determined and consideration of variation in natural position of rice grain at rest during compression gave representative apparent compressive strength across the five varieties. It requires about 25N for the rice grain (IITA306) to fail at 0.7mm at horizontal and 150N to crack the rice grain in vertical position at 21.0mm, it takes 60N for the rice grain (MAS) to fail at 1.4mm and 150N to crack the rice grain at 22.5mm as well as 58N for the rice grain (R18) to fail at 1.2mm and 125N to crack the rice grain at 20mm, as such 13N for the rice grain (SML) to fail at 0.93mm and 110N to crack the rice grain at 23.5mm as well as 21N for the rice grain (R15) to fail at 0.65mm and 200N to crack the rice grain at 22.5mm respectively. Therefore, losses during rice processing operations are specific. It is advisable to handle a particular rice variety uniquely since losses are variety specific. Keywords: biophysical, mechanical properties, rice varieties, processing, post-harvest losse