Evaluation of an integral dust separation system based wheat straw combine for improvement in animal feed quality Ali Mudasir1,*, Dixit Anoop Kumar, Manes Gursahib Singh, Modi Rajesh U.2, Singh Arshdeep, Mahal Amrit Kaur Punjab Agricultural UniversityLudhiana-141004, India 1SKUAST-K, Shalimar, Srinagar-190025, India 2ICAR-IISR, Lucknow-226002, India *Corresponding author: mudasir-fmpe@pau.edu
Online Published on 28 November, 2022. Abstract Ali, M., Dixit, A.K., Manes, G.S., Modi, R.U., Singh, A. and Mahal, A.K. 2022. Evaluation of an integral dust separation system based wheat straw combine for improvement in animal feed quality. Animal Nutrition and Feed Technology, 22: 641–652. In the northern states of India, wheat straw is the main feed source for milch animals. It has huge demand and economic value but suffers from poor quality, especially from dust. Excessive dirt in the feed may lower feed intake and disrupt digestion in milch animals. A tractor operated wheat straw combine developed with an integral dust separation system (PAU design) was evaluated to improve straw quality. Since, combine speed and clod trapping mechanism affect straw quality in the field, the independent parameters were: three tractor forward speeds (2.0, 2.5, and 3.0 km/h), two openings of clod trapper mechanism (32.5 and 25.0 mm) and two wheat varieties (HD 3086 and HD 2967). Better quality of feed straw was obtained at a forward speed of 2.0 km/h and at clod trapping mechanism opening of 32.5 mm in terms of minimum ash content (8.82 and 8.89%), minimum acid insoluble ash (4.98 and 5.01%), minimum dust concentration (6.64 and 6.67%), minimum fuel consumption (6.20 and 6.25 l/h) and desired range of straw size (19.71 and 18.20 mm) for HD 3086 and HD 2967, respectively. At a forwarding speed of 2.0 km/h, field capacity of wheat straw combine having developed integral dust separation system was 0.36 ha/has compared with 0.34 ha/h for commercial wheat straw combine. The ash content, acid insoluble ash, dust concentration and straw size of bruised straw obtained from straw combine with integral dust separation system were 4.68, 1.72, 4.61 and 20.86%, respectively lesser as compared to straw obtained from the commercial straw combine. Results indicate that the developed technology has the potential to improve quality of wheat straw as feed for milch animals and will help in reducing dust and entrainment of other undesirable material in the animal feed. Top Keywords Advanced machinery, Dust separation system, Quality animal feed, Straw combine. Top |