A dryer for soybean breeder seeds

As a result of the study of existing methods and devices for drying seeds, their poor adaptation for drying soybean breeder seeds was revealed, namely: the impossibility of effective drying of small batches of seeds (1-5 kg); increased injury during loading and unloading; unsuitable regime of specific moisture removal, which leads to loss of sowing qualities of valuable breeding seed samples. Analysis of the designs of previously developed dryers, as well as research carried out in the mechanization department at the V.S. Pustovoit All-Russian Research Institute of Oil Crops, made it possible to develop a new method for drying soybean breeder seeds and a device for its implementation - a chamber dryer for soybean breeder seeds in fabric bags. Drying seeds in fabric bags prevents direct contact of seeds with the structural elements of the dryer, which prevents damage from mechanical influences, as well as local overheating of the surface of the seeds. This saves the breeder seeds from mechanical trauma, leading to micro- and macrocracks in the seed shells and the surface tissues of the cotyledons located directly under the shell, and the axial organs of the embryos - the embryonic root, which leads to their death, which is extremely undesirable in breeding work. Blowing bags with seeds from two opposite sides provides the possibility of a softer drying mode - at a coolant temperature of 38 ºC, smoother removal of seed moisture, a more productive drying process, ensuring the absence of seeds cracking, which is very important in breeding. This is explained by the fact that when blowing bags with seeds from two opposite sides of the bags, the removal of moisture from the entire volume of seeds will be smoother and at the same time more productive than when blowing the same volume of seeds with a coolant. Analyzing the experimental data obtained, we can draw the following conclusion: a dryer design was created for soybean breeder seeds, which implements a soft drying mode, ensuring uniform drying with smooth moisture removal, preventing cracking of soybean seeds, as well as their mechanical damage.