Comparative Performance of Different Paddy Threshing Methods in Odisha, India

Four paddy threshers; namely power operated thresher-cumwinnower, power-tiller operated thresher, tractor operated thresher and tractor operated half feed thresher were evaluated with three varieties of paddy at three levels of grain moisture content. Their performances were compared with conventional methods i.e. hand beating and bullock treading. Threshers were evaluated with respect to output capacity, threshing efficiency, cleaning efficiency and grain losses. It was found that with increase in grain moisture content, the output capacity, the percentage of unthreshed grain and total grain losses increased while the percentage of grain breakage decreased for all the threshing methods used. Maximum output capacity was observed in case of tractor operated paddy thresher while it was minimum in case of conventional hand beating.