It is imperative to choose and determine the most suitable machine for shelling your maize crop as a farmer. To avoid the post-harvest trauma for farmers in large-scale maize production and small-scale farmers, the choice of equipment according to the harvest size is ideal.
The maize crop is a common product across all regions used for human and animal food production. Proper threshing means doing it at the right time using the right equipment to maintain the product’s quality.
The manual hand-held shelling equipment has been used for over 100 years but has been replaced by the efficient electric-motored sheller. While the former is easy to use and maintain, we are going to look at quick points to consider while choosing the motored threshing machine
Ease of Operation
Like all other electric farm equipment, the mode of operations of a corn-thresher is very crucial to a farmer for effective production preparation. It should be easy to operate with an ones-off user guide that would not require constant revisiting by the farmer/user.
A complex machine means limitations in its use and a high cost of fixing in the event of a breakdown. A good sheller should be easy to operate without fear of malfunction in the middle of an activity.
Maintenance
Threshing is an activity that occurs once in several months after the crop has been harvested. This means hours of rigorous machine activity. The extensive running of the machine would result in breakdowns and the need for frequent maintenance and other DIY activities.
A good maize sheller should allow the farmer to easily maintain by cleaning, oiling and greasing the moving parts. It should also be easy to fix with the broken-down parts readily available in the locale.
It would make no sense to ship for a spare part in the middle of a harvest and have to delay the shelling activity by days or even weeks.
Efficiency
An efficient thresher should separate the kernels from the maize combs without breaking the grains. It should also be able to remove all the grains without leaving chunks of grain that will require redoing it manually.
For the fuel-driven machines, oil contamination of the grains is disastrous for the farmer, and a worthy machine should be free from spillage.
Price Factor
The choice of shelling equipment should go hand in hand with the size of the anticipated harvest in terms of affordability. The amount of crop harvested should comfortably cater for the cost of the machine and its maintenance to ensure there is a balance on the return on investment, which is all farming is about.
Overview
The wisdom in farming is that it should be efficient by embracing the continually evolving farm mechanics through all the stages of crop production to increase and maintain productivity.
While maize shelling is among the last activities of the maize growing process, its efficiency and management are very key in determining the amount of crop harvested.
