TECHNICAL MEANS INFLUENCE ON DENSITY, INJURY AND QUALITY OF GRAIN SEEDS

Abstract

One of the main tasks of agricultural industry of Ukraine is the population food support. It is necessary to increase grain production to 80-100 million tons, including winter crops, for its implementation. It is necessary to have high quality seeds annually in the range of 1.8–2.0 million tons, since the area of wheat sowing is at least 6.0 million hectares, winter barley – 1,2 million hectares, and rye – 0.3 million hectares to ensure the sowing of the forecasted areas and to maximize the yield of winter wheat and rye. The quality of the seeds improvement by reducing their macro- and micro-injuries during harvesting and the impact of these processes on the seeds strength is the aim of the research. Grains and seeds injuries, especially micro-injuries while harvesting, post-harvest cultivation and sowing in some years reach 50–60% or more, which affects the quality and yield significantly. Industrial, experimental and laboratory studies were carried out on winter wheat and rye varieties at the forest-steppe and Polissya farms of Ukraine – Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Cherkasy regions. According to the research results the appearance and direction of the cracks and their quantities formation in most cases depends on the direction of the external forces and internal grains biological characteristics especially on the ripening state humidity and the timing and methods of harvesting. In addition to the cracks, the endosperm, the micro injury of the embryo and the seed and flower shells have also a significant effect on the strength of grains. We take the angular and translational acceleration of the deformation of the grain part For the independent parameters, by which we optimize the energy of grain acceleration in order to minimize the passage of the deformation process and micro-injury of the seeds. Additionally, we do the angular acceleration at the point of contact of the grain with the spherical surface of the working bodies of the drum and rotary threshing machines. Theoretical calculations and justification of drum and rotary threshing machines influence on seeds of grain crops injury and deformation are carried out. The application of theoretical calculations by mathematical modeling method of technical means operation processes during the gathering and industrial, experimental and laboratory studies were carried out on winter wheat and rye varieties at the forest-steppe and Polissya farms of Ukraine – Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr and Cherkasy regions. Such calculations and graphic dependencies confirm experimentally – production studies that macro- and especially micro injuries of winter wheat seeds and rye when harvested by rotary threshing machine is much smaller than the drum that significantly affects the quality of the seeds.

Keywords

• seeds
• macro-injuries
• micro-injuries
• strength
• cracks
• deformation
• quality
• threshing machines.