Post harvest Preservation of Wheat and Maize and Comparative Study of Off farm Storage Methods in Samastipur District Bihar

Abstract

This experiment was conducted to study about the Postharvest Preservation of Wheat and newlineMaize and Comparative Study of Off-farm Storage Methods in Samastipur District, Bihar. newlineVarious off farm storage methods practiced there was also compared. A survey was conducted newlineon the traditional practices for the storage of Wheat and Maize grains in 15 villages of Samastipur newlinedistricts in Bihar viz. Fulhara, Ajana, Gopalpur, Maniarpur, Rampura, Ladaura, Birsingpur, newlineKalyanpur, Akbarpur, Pratapur, Basudevpur, Dhruvgama, Teera, Mirjapur, Kabargama of newlineSamastipur for the study. A pre drafted questionnaire was used to record the details of the newlinestorage practices. Information was collected from 90 farmers selected randomly from all these newline15 villages. The present study revealed that plastic bags (35.56 %) were used by most of the newlinefarmers followed by Jute Bags (28.89%) and least use of Mud bin (6.66%) by farmers. newlineA total of 75 farmers (5 from 15 identified villages) were selected to assess the losses in newlineharvesting and threshing by manual methods for wheat and maize. Results revealed that the total newlineharvesting and threshing losses were 1. 65% and 2. 30% in wheat respectively while threshing loss newlineof 1.20% was observed in maize. Wheat threshing loss was found highest as 3.35% in Mirjapur newlinevillage and the lowest as 1.18% in Rampura. Maize threshing loss was found highest as 1.66% in newlinePratapur village and lowest as 0.85% in Ladaura village. The harvesting loss in wheat was newlinerecorded highest as 2.87% and lowest as 0.78% in Kabargama and Fulhara village respectively. newlineA comparison of storage behavior of wheat and maize with and without treatment in newlinedifferent types of storage bags was studied. Hermetic bags, jute bags, plastic bags, polythene newlinebags and metal bins along with untreated and treated (neem leaves and sulfas) were included in newlinethe storage. Under untreated storage, wheat and maize were stored in jute bag with hermetic bag newline- (T1), plastic bag with hermetic bag- (T2) and metal bin with hermetic bag-(T3). Whereas Wheat newlineand Maize gra