Moisture exchange in freshly harvested grain mass

Abstract

The use of new technologies and the development of scientific and technological progress require new ideas about the processes of sorption and desorption. In order to obtain high-quality products when harvesting grain crops, it is necessary to have more complete understanding of the processes occurring in the freshly harvested grain mass and further affecting grain processing and storage. This requires knowledge of changes in the moisture content of grain material and the transfer of moisture from weed impurities at a specific time of day when harvesting grain crops. This issue is particularly important when harvesting grain for seeds. At harvesting, the grain mass entering for further processing is heterogeneous in composition and moisture content. Depending on many factors, the moisture content of individual grains varies very widely. Increased moisture content of freshly harvested grain is greatly influenced by the amount of weed impurity. In the absence of precipitation, it reaches the maximum or minimum by the afternoon. The research was carried out on several farms of the Altai Region for a number of years. Literature data analysis on the transfer of moisture from weeds to wheat grain in freshly harvested grain mass was carried out. The analysis and observations of changes in the equilibrium moisture content of grain and seeds during the harvesting period at different times of the day were also carried out. Based on mathematical processing of the data obtained, empirical dependences of the moisture content of the grain mass and the main grain at various harvesting techniques on the content of impurities and the initial moisture content of the grain mass were obtained. The obtained data is an important step contributing to the high-quality post-harvest handling and obtaining high-quality grain.