FAISALABAD: Rice growers have been advised to harvest their crops after maturity of grains and change of their color.
A spokesman for the agriculture (extension) department said on Wednesday that farmers should be conscious
in its harvest as many growers waste heavy quantity of rice grains as they cut their crops when the grains
were still immature and in green colour.
He said that paddy growers should harvest the crops when grains at top of the stalk have changed their colour and a few grains at the bottom (two or three) were still green but be fully mature. At this time, the moisture
content of grains was about 22 percent and the grains above the stalks were clean, transparent and strong while
90 to 95 percent of grains were like the color of dry straw.
Responding to a question, he told APP that leaving the crop standing for a long time after the crop was ripened causes the grains to fall off and thus the yield was affected at a large extent.
He said that the farmers should cover the pile of grains with tarpaulin or straw at night and after that the grains should be shifted to the market as soon as possible. If it was late for any reason, the pile should be opened and ventilated during day time. He said that about 10-15 percent of paddy crop was harvested by laborers while the farmers try to harvest as much as possible so that it could be threshed together.
According to modern research, the sooner the threshing was done after harvesting, the chances of broken rice during peeling at husk removing machine will be reduced, he added.
Many grains are lost due to carelessness during threshing. Although the farmers do not realize this loss but overall this loss can reach to many maunds so caution is very important in threshing process.
He said that timely harvesting and threshing was very important for good cooking. In case of early threshing of paddy, the number and quantity of green and immature grains was high as the development of these grains was incomplete, therefore they remain weak and break down in a large scale.
If the crop was allowed to stand in the field even after it was fully ripened, then in case of over-ripening and drying, the grains will also weak due to which the rice will break during threshing and husk removing, he added.
He further said that for the last few years, paddy harvesting machines had been used. The machines used for paddy harvesting were mainly wheat harvesting machines, so these machines break some grains during threshing. According to a study, machine harvesting reduces unbroken rice by 4 to 6 percent. These losses were lessened by the use of a rice harvester. Wheat harvesting machines use special parts to harvest paddy while these machines also exceed their speeds from the prescribed limit when harvesting paddy crops. Speed of the machine should be kept low while harvesting fallen and high-stalk crops. Speed of gear, harvesting drum and fan should be according to the machine’s guide while harvesting paddy crops through machine, he added.
The farmers should dry the rice grains gently and intermittently and the interval from one dry to another should not be less than 12 hours and the rice grains should also be left open for at least 12 hours so that the moisture content in all rice grains be equal, he added.

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