Gone are the days when farmers are compelled to shell out hefty sum as wage for the laborious pepper threshing mode using feet under highly unhygienic conditions.
Gopalakrishna Sharma, an innovative farmer from Pedre village in the district has developed a refined version of pepper thrashing machine, thus helping farmers to carry out threshing works in time bound manner when pepper market very often remains unsteady.
Mr. Sharma, who is known for employing intensive farming methods, has come out with a modified version of the existing machines in which pepper wines very often get jammed during the threshing process, thus affecting the very efficacy of the gadget.
The indigenously developed threshing machine could function without causing any damages to pepper granules they get separated from pepper wines as the processed produce could be collected in a vessel while the pepper wines could be routed through another channel.
With an efficiency measured up to 99.50 per cent, the machine could also be operated by women at ease.
While a person engaged in manual threshing could expect to have an average of 100 KG pepper a day, the machine has the capacity to thresh 250 KG pepper granules per hour, a senior Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) official, quoting Mr. Sharma, told The Hindu here on Tuesday.
The Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and National Bank of Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) as part of their monthly farmers interface programme hosted a demonstration of the machine at the CPCRI here on Tuesday.
Mr. Sharma, who demonstrated the modified machine at the function, said the gadget could carry out the threshing process under hygienic conditions unlike the manual threshing in barren land using the feet.
R. Chandramohan, who heads the Crop Protection Division of the CPCRI, inaugurated the programme. NABARD Assistant General Manager Mr. Gopalan also spoke at the function.
Published - November 29, 2011 03:10 pm IST
