The research work is conducted at horticultural research institute, Dokki Giza Governorate to accomplish the machine work. The main objective of this work, is to manufacture and evaluate a locally seed extractor to minimize the extraction costs. The manufactured machine was evaluated as a function of change in drum speed and feed rate in terms of extraction efficiency, cleaning efficiency, chopping time, seed loses and operational cost.
The main results in this study can be abstracted as follows:
- Extraction efficiency increased from 95.5 % to 99.1 % by increasing the chopping drum speed from 3.75m/s to 5.7m/s. Results showed that the washing process is very important in extracting seeds it increased extraction efficiency by 40 time.
- By increase the chopping drum speed from 3.75 m/s to 5.7 m/s, the chopping consumed time decreased from 45 sec to 20 sec, and washing time decreased from 540 sec to 420 sec, respectively.
- Seed losses increased by increasing the chopping drum speed.
- There was not any mechanical damage of seed using the seed extractor. Seed total losses increased from 3.2% to 4.8% by increasing chopping drum speed from 3.75 m/s to 5.7 m/s.
- There was a negative relation between chopping drum speed and cleaning efficiency.
- The operational cost of extractor was 8.53LE/h (185.1LE/ton). Meanwhile the manual extraction cost was 4375LE/ton.