TN Agricultural Uty develops solar chilli dryer

Coimbatore, Apr 4: The Post Harvest Technology Centre of the Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (TNAU) has developed 'New Poly House Solar Tunnel Dryer for drying chillies.

The newly-developed dryer machine with a capacity of half tonne per batch has been installed at Singarayapuram village in Ramanathapuram district of Tamil Nadu recently.

The system was installed with financial support from All India Coordinated Research Project on Renewable energy source, Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) scheme of Post Harvest Technology Centre, DHAN Foundation of Madurai and contribution from the farmers of the beneficiary village, TNAU, in a press release said here today.

Since agriculture was the main source of livelihood in Singarayapuram village, the local chilli variety namely ''Ramanathapuram mundu'' is predominately grown in this tract.

Chilli fruit (full maturity) with moisture content of nearly 70-75 per cent, is highly perishable and hence processing and storage are considerably important both at the farm as well as at the processor and consumer levels.

As the shelf life of freshly harvested chilli is estimated to be two to three days, it is essential to reduce the moisture content and provide aeration to the chillies after harvesting to avoid development of micro flora and subsequent loss of quality or total spoilage. Therefore, chilles need to be dried quickly without impairing color and pungency.

Realising the importance, the poly house solar tunnel drier was designed and developed for chillies by the Post Harvest Technology Centre. The drying of chilles were carried out using stainless steel trays with 40 per cent perforations. The fresh chillies were spread uniformly in trays as single layer and double layer and were placed at 30 to 100 cm heights of solar tunnel dryer.

It was observed that the chillies dried in Solar drier were hygienic with good appearance and colour. The chillies could be dried to the required final moisture content of four per cent within two to three days in the solar tunnel drier compared to 7 to 10 days in the traditional sun drying, the release added.

UNI