Ugandan local farmers have adopted easier means of shelling corns off the cob, following both tedious and much labour in manual shelling.

It was also discovered that selling dry maize cobs leads to low income as farmers is cheated due to low value addition and the cobs takes up much storage space due to their bulk.

However, been advised to adopt the ideal machine, for small scale commercial farmers, which is both easier to use and affordable.

The machine is a hand operated maize thresher with a weight of about 15 kilogrammes.

With a cup-like hollow opening where the cob is placed to be worked upon, the machine has a wheel that is hand driven using a handle to move the small gears below the hollow opening that remove seeds off the cob.

How it works

To operate it, the cob is placed inside the hollow opening and as one peddles the wheel using their hand, the corn is removed as they fall off the ground below the machine.

Before operating, check the secure and flexibility of fasteners. And in order to improve the threshing rate, adjust the spring and press the screw to the suitable degree; not too loose, and not too tight. Place the machine on a well levelled ground to prevent it from moving, report states.

It is also better to thresh dry corn because it is easily removable from the cob and when threshing, hold the cranking bar with your left hand, put the corn heads into the machine’s mouth/ hollow opening and press it lightly or with a little more pressure to thresh clean as you peddle the wheel using your right hand.

The machine also has a seating space from which the operator can comfortably work it. On top of its portability, the machine totally depends on manual operation and thus requires no fuel or electricity making it ideal for farmers in rural areas where those sources of energy might be a challenge.

However, this is a challenge in itself since one will require a lot of energy to operate the machine themselves, and thus the output and speed within which the threshing takes place depends on how energetic and quick the operator is.

Nonetheless, it goes without saying that one needs about three rounds of the hand driven wheel to thresh a single maize cob.