Special Plastic Sheet for Paddy Drying: Prevention of Road Accidents

It has always been RMUTT’s responsibilities to establish the relevance of agriculture clusters to the development of Thailand’s sustainable economy and that inter-connect and build value networks from upstream, midstream and downstream. Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi (RMUTT) has been offering its knowledge, developing innovations, and creating a limitless number of researches. The university obligates itself to make policies under the concept of workability, incomplexity, friendly-use, constant development, and cost-saving. And thus, under this concept, ‘Plastic Sheet for Paddy Drying’ was invented. “Drying their paddy on netting laid until the safe moisture content of rice reaching 14 % on roads was normally preferred; however, causing numbers of road accidents and sometimes contaminating rice paddy with rodent and bird urine or droppings, farmers are banned from practice. Furthermore, farmers are also seeing the effects erratic weather conditions in Thailand leading to lower profits and creating debts. Therefore, we have decided to invent ‘Plastic Sheet for Paddy Drying’ for farmers”, revealed Assistant Professor Dr. Mano Suwannakum, an instructor and researcher of RMUTT’s Department of Agricultural Engineering. “The special plastic will help lessen rice’s moisture content, keep its best quality, and definitely reduce accident caused by drying paddy on road. Resulting from a collaboration between them, distinct plastic sheet was designed, developed and researched by Agricultural Engineering, while cutting, sewing, and designing were expertly conducted by representatives of Department of Home Economics.    Concerning its characteristics and potential benefits, the plastic bag was designed having transparent feature on the upper part and dark one on the lower part in order to absorb light easier and enable to hold on to heat just acting like a green-house to help dry the paddy.  The sheet would be attached with zippers before installing them on a plastic structure with dry blower inside to help lower the moisture content. Concerning the rain inclination of the sheet, the angle of sheet installation will 99% help protect the rain drops while the heat temperature will be trapped inside the structure around 60 Degree Celsius. Interestingly, these approaches will help keep suitable moisture content and lessen fragments of rice grain. The structure will include 10 meters of the special sheet but custom lengths are available. It could be said that this special invention could help small- scale farmers dry their paddy of more than 500 kilograms at a time. This is how it works. Just contain the rice paddy inside the structure until it reaches the height of 10 cm then zip the sheet up, dry the moisture out with blower and keep them outdoor for 3 days. They will be ready for use. With the aim of transferring the knowledge to Sri Saket ‘s Organic Rice Community Technology Enterprise who produce organic rice under the standard of IFOAM and preventing road accidents, RMUTT trained these members to design, sew, and develop this special plastic. With limited space of use and also available for other types of crops, the production will create the enterprise profits and create road safety awareness. For those interested in the product, please call RMUTT Information Center at 0-2549-4994.