A case study on milling quality of local paddy varieties of Manipur stored in traditional storage methods

Abstract

A case study was carried out to introduce improved indigenous storage structures for storing of four local cultivars of paddy. The improved structures were i) polythene lined bamboo storage structure, ii) metal bin, iii) bamboo storage structure plastered with mud and cowdung mix and iv) wooden storage structure. Effect of different storage structures on moisture content, milling recoveries, insect damage, losses due to moisture migration and germination percentage on four local cultivars of paddy, viz; KD, Huikap, Leimaphou and RCM-9 were investigated. Grains at initial moisture content of 12.5% (w.b.) were stored and changes in its quality parameters were observed for 10 months with intervals of one month. The highest changes in grain moisture content were observed in bamboo mat structures plastered with mud-cowdung mix in all paddy cultivars (16.10-16.50%) except in KD (15.20%) after 10 months and the lowest changes were observed in wooden storage structures ranging from 13.75 to 14.22% (w.b.). No significant change in head rice recovery upto four months were observed. However highest head rice yield of 65.91% in KD and lowest 57.00% in Huikap cultivar were observed in wooden structure and bamboo mat structure respectively. Similarly, insect damage on grain was significant only after 4 months and was highest in bamboo mud structure followed by polythene lined bamboo structure.  The highest grain loss of 5.0-5.3% was observed in metal bin due to moisture migration in the structure. Germination test of 10 months stored grains did not show significant difference in all cultivars stored in polythene lined bamboo structure, metal bin and wooden storage structure ranging from 90-93% germination. However, bamboo structure plastered with mud-cowdung mix structure gave the poorest germination capacity of 80%.