Blast wheel device for threshing soybeans

A blast wheel device was used to throw plastic pellets weighing 0.024 g each at speeds of 38 m/s to impart impact energy for threshing soybeans from standing uncut plants. The device showed significant differences in threshing 88.1%, 91.2%, and 94.3% of the seeds, removing 3.4%, 5.4%, and 7.7% of the material other than grain (MOG), and detaching 9%, 17.3%, and 25.7% of the pods from Asgrow, Dunbar, and Hoegemeyer cultivars, respectively No significant differences were found in breaking 0.1%, 0.07%, and 0.1% of the seeds. Seeds accounted for 96.9%, 93.7%, and 92.6% of the plant material removed from the respective cultivars. A second test confirmed significant differences in threshing 91.6% and 95.7% of the seeds and detaching 27.2% and 32.4% of the pods, while no significant difference was found in removing 9% and 9.05% of the MOG, from Asgrow and Dunbar cultivars, respectively. No statistical difference resulted in threshing 92.1% and 95.2% of the seeds from plants with 12% and 8.5% moisture content pods, respectively. However highly significant differences were found in removing 5.7% and 12.3% of the MOG, and detaching 18.6% and 40.9% of the pods from stems for the respective pod moisture contents. The estimated energy/ha carried by the pellet stream was 7.7 MJ/ha, while the estimated energy/ha required by the blast wheel was 30 MJ/ha