Impact of Solar Bubble Drying on Milling Quality of Large-scale Paddy

Abstract

Rice is the staple food for a large part of human population, in particular for the hundreds of millions of Asians, Africans, and Latin Americans living in the tropics and subtropics should be "About 65% of the population in India. For the offseason utilization of paddy, drying is critical for long-term storage. To address the challenge of low-cost drying methods in rural areas, the drying performance of the solar bubble dryer (SBD), developed by IRRI, was compared against open sun drying (SD) and solar tunnel drying (STD) under the climatic conditions of Odisha. SBD provides a more consistent and controlled temperature, which helps preserve the quality of the paddy. SBD can handle larger quantities of paddy than traditional solar dryers which reduces operational cost. After drying process milling properties of raw paddy rice were evaluated and found that total rice yield was 68.70±1.21 % for solar bubble dryer, 67.44±1.39% for solar tunnel dryer and 66.63±1.71% for solar drying. The head rice yield was higher (56.24±0.80%) for paddy dried using SBD compared to sun drying method (52.46±1.09%) and solar tunnel drying method (54.35±0.19%). Based on the statistical analysis, we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that SBD is statistically significant compared to STD and SD in terms of drying efficiency. The results suggest that SBD can effectively reduce the moisture content of paddy, making it a more efficient drying method. In conclusion, this study provides strong evidence that solar bubble drying is an effective method for improving the milling quality of large-scale paddy, resulting in higher quality rice, reduced energy consumption, and increased economic benefits for rural farmers and processors.