Agricultural Engineering Today
Year : 2000, Volume : 24, Issue : 4
First page : ( 34) Last page : ( 39)
Print ISSN : 0970-2962.

Energy requirement for milling of wheat, maize and oil seeds in tiny rural industries in Punjab

Singh Surendra, Pannu C.J.S., Singh Jasdev*

* Department of Farm Power and Machinery, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana.

Abstract

The food processing in the country is one of the most energy demanding industry. The higher cost of commercial energy and its decreasing availability in future will be a major handicap for this industry. To find the energy requirement for making wheat/maize flour and extracting oil in tiny rural industries in Punjab, twenty five flour mills were selected in and around village Gardiwala, District Hoshiarpur in agro-climatic zone-I. Data were collected in a pre-tested proforma for two years. Out of 25 flour mills the 13 have the provision of milling of oil seeds. Milling of wheat is done throughout the year. Milling of maize is done from September to March when the consumption of wheat flour reduces. The extraction of oil is done throughout the year but it peaks during the months of April to June i.e. after the harvesting of mustard crop. Wheat milling requires 5.7 kWh/q (68.5 MJ/q) of energy, maize requires 10.8 kWh/q (192.2 MJ/q) and milling of oil seeds requires 11.3 kWh/q (135.4 MJ/q) of energy. It may be noted that oil seeds are milled 2–3 times to extractmore oil and milling of maize requires more energy as compared to wheat as maize kernals are large in size and comparatively harder.

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