Abstract
Recently, the introduced Turkish thresher has become widespread among small-scale farmers in Morocco. However, the length of straw for appropriate for animal feed could not be produced by the Turkish thresher. Therefore, an inlet and an outlet for wheat and barley straw were installed in the threshing drum. In addition, the threshing drum was adapted to a screw-type tooth arrangement. Trial manufacture was then done in order to secure the appropriate length of straw.
The result of the earlier performance test of the Turkish thresher showed that more than 90% of the straw was cut into small pieces of less that 10cm and was therefore of no value for feed. However, the results of the improved screw type threshing drum showed a rate of straw loss of only 9.0% for “Merchouch” wheat and 10.3% for “Beldi” barley. It was therefore demonstrated that the improved screw-type threshing drum was able to produce a reasonable length of straw for feed.
