Design, Fabrication And Performance Evaluation Of Pedal Operated Groundnut Decorticator

2.4    Post Harvest Losses of Groundnut Seeds
Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea) is widely grown worldwide as a food and cash crop.  It is one of the highest pay crops with fairly stable prices.  Household consumption is quite high with preference to the brown /red kernelled varieties because of their reputed state.
It is very important to harvest groundnut at optimum maturity to reduce the post-harvest losses and to maintain the quality of the product under long-term storage conditions.  Both early as well as late harvesting can result in substantial loss.  Due to its indeterminate growth habit, pod maturity is not uniform in groundnut. It one waits for all the pods of a plant to mature, the seeds in early-formed pods.  In some cases, start sprouting due to lack of seed dormancy or pod walls disintegrating due to effect of fungi and other microbes.  The easiest and most practical method to 100k for pod maturity is internal pericarp color. Darkening of the internal pericap id directly related to seed maturity [fig 2.4.1 1]. When 75 - 80% pod show internal pericap darkening, it means the crop is at optimum maturity. At harvesting, groundnut pod generally contains about 35% moisture, which must be brought below 7% to provide optimal conditions in storage.  The harvested plants are well shake to dislodge the soil from pods and are left in the field to 2-3days for initial drying before stripping in the post-training season, when higher temperatures (40-450c) prevail at the time of harvesting the pod must be stripped immediately and dried under shade.  Both mechanical and manual threshing is common in Nigeria [ICRI SAT 2010].