Development and Evaluation of Finger Millet Thresher-Cum-Pearler

Purpose Traditionally, the threshing, pearling, and cleaning operation of finger millet (FM) is performed manually. It is characterized as low output, time-consuming, laborious, and uneconomical. Also, to get finished grains from FM panicles one-time threshing, one-time pearling, and two-times cleaning operation are needed. To overcome this problem a 2-hp single-phase electric motor-operated finger millet thresher-cum-pearler (FMTCP) was developed, that performs all respective operations in a single pass. Methods The feed rate of developed FMTCP is 36 kg/h. Its performance was carried out as per IS:6284-1985 test code, and economic analysis were done by IS:9164-1979 test code. The energy audit of FMTCP and manual FM processing was carried out. Results The developed FMTCP shows the threshing efficiency, pearling efficiency, cleaning efficiency, and total grain loss of 99.51 ± 0.11, 98.22 ± 0.31, 96.51 ± 0.25, and 2.35 ± 0.07%, respectively at moisture content (MC) 10% (db). Manually, threshing capacity, pearling capacity, cleaning capacity after threshing, and cleaning capacity after pearling were found as 24.3, 11.23, 11.6, and 9.1 kg/h, respectively. The benefit-cost ratio and payback period were found as 7.25 and 10.80 months, respectively. Conclusions Manual FM processing capacity was found eight times less than that of the FMTCP. The energy consumption of FMTCP was 44% less than that of manual FM processing. It proved that the traditional processing of FM is energy-intensive.