Low-cost palay moisture meter now available
THE Philippine Center for Postharvest Development and Mechanization (PHilMech) has developed a low-cost SHEGA III grain moisture meter, which is now available for palay and corn farmers and traders.
The PHilMech moisture meter costs about P12,000 each, cheaper than the imported variety that costs P15,000- P30,000.
A moisture meter is used to monitor the moisture content of grains as excessive moisture content leads to spoilage and poor grain quality while over dried grains result to weight loss.
PHilMech, a center based in Munoz, Nueva Ecija under the Department of Agriculture, said the price of its meters could further be reduced depending on the demand.
CVS FOR MILLED RICE
In another development, an agricultural engineer of PHilMech has developed a state-of-the-art but low cost computer vision system (CVS) for analyzing the quality of milled rice.
Manolito Bulaong, director for research and development, conducted the study leading to the development of the CVS.
The CVS is not yet widely available, but PHilMech welcomes interested parties for a visit and is ready to provide more detailed information on the project.
According to Bulaong, the CVS which uses an ordinary document scanner that serves as the “eye” of the system, can compute the percentage by weight of good quality grains and defective grains such as broken grains, brewer’s grain, damaged, chalky, discolored, immature, and red kernels present in a sample.
It can also count the number of palay grains, measure the grain length, and output of the grade of milled rice according to the specification of the National Grains Standard.
“Grains standardization is one of the strategies for modernizing the agriculture sector particularly improving the efficiency and global competitiveness of the grains industry,” Bulaong said. (E. Embuscado)
Share your Comments or Reactions
Powered by Facebook Comments
