Development of Hand Operated Sorghum Thresher

Abstract

A hand operated 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 is of low cost, simple in structure, convenient in operating and easy for repairing. In the field, it was tested in East Hararghe Zone, Haramaya District at the place Legeambo that is not more than 3 km to the North of Haramaya University. In the test the variables considered were variety (Muira, Fendisha and Zengada), three body weight of farmers (50, 60 and 70 kg) and three feed rate (3, 5 and 7 kg/min). The selected experimental design was split-split plot design with three replications. The machine was tested at constant drum-concave-clearance (inlet 25 outlet 17mm) and grain moisture content was maintained 14-16% wet basis. The result indicated that the average efficiency and output capacity were 93.72% and 310.13 kg/h respectively.