EFFECT OF SOLAR BUBBLE DRYER ON SEED QUALITY OF PADDY
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Date
2023
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Abstract
Paddy (Oryza sativa L.), is the staple food of over 3 billion people and is the most widely cultivated food crop. Although rice holds great importance as a crop, significant amount of rice ends up going to waste as a result of challenges in post-harvest management. Post-harvest loss reduction has the potential to increase the national food security. Drying and storage are two key post-harvest processes to improve yield in rice production. Storing of freshly harvested seeds without properly drying to safe level of moisture may affect the quality of seeds. Assam is identified for its poor storability and lack of proper storage facility makes it difficult for its storage up to the next season resulting in deterioration of seed quality parameters. In the present investigation, freshly harvested seeds of three varieties (Ranjit sub-1, Numali and Mahsuri) were taken from the ICR farm of Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat. Dryer performance of Solar bubble dryer (SBD) was evaluated and compared with the sun drying method. Higher air and grain temperature were recorded in SBD as compared to the sun drying method. Grain temperature inside SBD did not exceed the critical limit 43°C which ensured quality and prevented damage of the paddy seeds. In the same duration of time, SBD showed advantage over sun drying in achieving faster reduction of moisture content (%) for all the three varieties. After drying, seeds were stored in different packaging materials viz., T1 (seeds dried in SBD + stored in HDPE bag), T2 (seeds dried in SBD + stored in poly-lined jute bag), T3 (seeds dried in SBD + stored in IRRI super bag) and T4-control (seeds sun dried + stored in PP bag). Seed quality parameters were recorded at 30 days interval for 6 months (180 DAS). Analysis of variance showed significant variation among treatments and storage periods for all the seed quality parameters. Irrespective of the varieties, T1 (seeds dried in SBD + stored in IRRI super bag) gave the best result with respect to all seed quality parameters after 180 DAS, i.e. seed germination (87.6%), seed viability (97.1%), seedling length (16.81 cm), SVI-I (1679.63) , seedling dry weight (131.31mg ), SVI-II (11536.3), seed moisture content (11.49 %) and seed infestation (8.56 %). Lowest result was observed in seeds T4-control (seeds sundried + stored in PP bag) with respect to seed germination (80.1%), seed viability (89.3%), seedling length (16.26 cm), SVI-I (1301.28), seedling dry weight (126.54 mg) and SVI-II (9371.9). However, in case of seed infestation, T2 (seeds dried in SBD + stored in poly-lined jute bag) was recorded the lowest with 17.67%. Therefore the findings revealed that seeds dried in SBD and stored in IRRI super bag can be an option for lesser seed deterioration of paddy seeds.