Usually, the available methods to trash cereal seeds do not provide a clean product, as required for commercialization, seeding and storage. For this purpose it is necessary to submit the seed lot to a cleaning process to eliminate grain fragments and other contaminants such as soil and plant particles. Common processing procedures are not efficient and other methods available, more sophisticated, are not economically suitable for small farmers. The objective of this study was to construct three different blowers and evaluate their performance on rice: one provided with a foot operated fan; a second with an electric fan; and a third with electric fan and screeners. Seed lots with different degrees of impurities and different machine feeding rates were used. Greater operation efficiency was obtained for the least contaminated lot and smallest seeding rate. Efficiency was considered adequate for seed lots up to 4% contamination level. For 6% impurity, seed lots had to be blown three times to lower impurity level less than 1%. Seed loss was not significant.
Oryza sativa; seed cleaning; machine
