In Ghana, smallholder maize farmers continue to serve as the primary contributor to maize production. These farmers, however, still face challenges of access to appropriate, effective, and efficient drying systems. They continue to depend on open sun drying, which leads to high post-harvest losses. In this study, a 500 kg portable column dryer with a biomass burner heat source was evaluated using maize. Indicators such as drying rate, drying efficiency, and moisture extraction rate were used to assess its technical performance. The economic performance of the drying system was appraised using Net Present Value (NPV), Internal Rate of Return (IRR), Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR), and Payback Period (PBP). The results showed that the moisture content of maize was reduced from 22.3% to 13.4 ± 2.6% in 5 h at an average drying rate of 1.81%/h and drying efficiency of 64.7%. Utilization of the column dryer for the provision of drying services in a maize-growing community over a 10-year utilization period proved viable with an NPV and IRR of $1633 and 71%, respectively, PBP of less than two years, and BCR of 2.82. Adoption of such low-capacity mobile grain dryers in sub-Saharan Africa would be beneficial in providing timely drying services and improve the socio-economic status of smallholder maize farmers in the region.

Pod grains threshing using mechanical devices is essential in understanding the diversities involved in the application of machine–crop parameter combinations towards achieving best quality grain. The integration of pod grains’ physical properties in optimizing product quality which is vital to meet the increasing global requirement is limited. However, with computing and technological advancements into thresher design and evaluation have been found to be capable of meeting these needs which are of interest to researchers. Over the past three–four decades, the applications of the technology in reducing impact force through modification of peg geometry have attracted researchers’ widespread interest and the future looks promising. This review presents an overview of mechanical thresher development and the applications in the field of pod grain production chain. The role of grain physical properties in threshers design, operations and with force sensors to reveal the mysteries surrounding the causes of grain damage and how they can be minimised are stressed. The current trends and future advances of such studies are also presented.

The study assessed the technical performance and economic viability of a 200 kg capacity biomass-powered inclined bed dryer for drying maize. The dryer recorded an average air temperature of 73.54˚C in the plenum, which reduced the moisture content from 23.25% (w.b) to 13.61% (w.b) at a drying time of 2 hours 40 minutes. This resulted in a drying rate, drying efficiency, and specific energy consumption of 9.50 kg/h, 71.37%, and 25.70 MJ/kg, respectively. The germination potential of dried maize grains was 80% compared to 93% for grains assessed before drying. Stress-crack analysis revealed a lower percentage of no-cracks for dried maize (71%) than maize gains before drying (98%). There was a statistically significant difference between the dried and the undried maize grains for germination viability (p = 0.01) and stress crack analysis (p = 0.00) at α=0.05. At a drying charge of US$ 2.4 per 100 kg bag of maize, the investment cost could be regained at a pay-back period of 6 months and 15 operation days and a benefit-cost ratio of 1.27. The drying system is economically viable at net present value of US$ 1313.48 and internal rate of return of 44%. Evidently, adopting the dryer could contribute to reducing post-harvest loss of maize at the smallholder level and increase farmer's income. Int. J. Agril. Res. Innov. Tech. 13(1): 15-24, June 2023