Seed Cleaning Method – Basic Seed Cleaning
Basic seed cleaning refers to actual cleaning and grading of seeds. Unlike pre-cleaning/ Precleaning/ pre-conditioning, which may or may not be required, basic seed cleaning is an essential process in the seed cleaning operations. Many kinds of seeds can be completely cleaned and made into a finished product by, basic cleaning. In other instances, however, further separations to remove specific contaminants may be necessary, or desirable. Regardless of whether further specific separations are made or are not made, basic seed cleaning for every lot is invariably done.
Equipment for basic seed cleaning. Basic seed cleaning is done over an air screen machine, commonly referred to as an air screen cleaner. It is also basic equipment in seed processing plants.
Air Screen Machine:
Principles of Cleaning:
The separation of undesirable material and seeds from desirable seeds in an air screen machine is done on the basis of differences in seed size and weight. In some separations, seed shape could also be used. The air screen machine uses cleaned, but which were too large to drop through the second screen, are removed here.
As the crop seed drops off the fourth screen, they fall through the lower air separation. This removes the light seed and trash which was not removed by the upper air and the screens. For efficient cleaning, the lower air blast should be strong enough to blow out a few good seed.