THE POTENTIALS OF HULLING HIGH-MOISTURE PADDY

Field hulling of high-moisture paddy followed by brown rice drying offers many advantages over the present paddy harvesting and drying offers many advantages over the present paddy harvesting and drying system. We did a preliminary study of the parameters for efficient hulling of high-moisture paddy using the IRRI Centrifugal Huller and two India rice varieties. Hulling capacity , hulling efficiency , brown rice recovery and percent whole bown rice were generally best at the impeller peripheral speed of 44m/s. A second pass through the huller increased hulling capacity , brown rice revery and hulling efficiency, but reduced percent whole brown rice. To solve this , we recommed separation of paddy after hulling and aspiration such that only unhulled and partially -hulled grains will be fed back to the huller. Paddy at even 23% m.c. could be effectively hulled by the impeller-type huller , but the results were generally better at 14 to 17% m.c. Only in percent whole brown rice did the 17 to 23% m.c. range performed better than that of 14% m.c. Difference invarietal response to hulling was observed.