Author : Fitriati, Deasy

Summary : Maize has a great potential to be improved and developed, primarily as feed. Postharvest is an important activity in maize cultivation that if not handled properly, will cause quantitative losses. The growing feed industry prompts the continuous supply of maize. However, manual and traditional postharvest handling cannot support the demand in addition to scarcity in postharvest manpower. An appropriate postharvest machine will reduce the handling time, amount of labor needed, and quantitative losses. The Directorate of Postharvest Food Crops Database showed that the most widely owned machine by farmers is the corn sheller. However, farm- level harvesting affects the application of postharvest machines and the resulting quantitative losses. Therefore, the method of harvesting and shelling are important to be analyzed to determine quantitative losses and further study is required to determine the most efficient means that can reduce quantitative losses.

This study on maize harvesting and shelling aimed to determine the appropriate means of support to decrease quantitative losses in maize in treatments used in the analysis of harvesting by hand and by a sickle, while the treatments in the analysis of shelling were traditional manual threshing; power thresher multiguna, a sheller machine commonly used by farmers; and corn sheller as an assistance machine from the Ministry of Agriculture. Each treatment was tested in dry season and rainy season. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) was used to analyze maize postharvest facilities and to determine least quantitative losses. Harvesting by hand and by sickle in each season did not produce a significant difference on quantitative losses. Manual threshing consumed a much longer time than the mechanical one; however, manual threshing had lesser quantitative losses than mechanical threshing. Threshing using power thresher multiguna and corn sheller did not show absolute difference in quantitative losses and processing time. In the analysis of maize postharvest facilities to determine support to reduce quantitative losses, experts’ and respondents’ judgments had inconsistency of less than 10 percent. The most important actor in this goal was the government. Furthermore, the most important criteria was the quality and the sub criteria was SNI. Dryer followed by corn sheller are the prioritized alternatives in order to reduce postharvest quantitative losses in maize.