'Roy Ritchie' Articles

The indent cylinder machine is designed primarily to separate grain by kernel length. It separates long kernels from shorter ones. The cylinder itself is a thin-walled tube with indents formed on the inside to the shape of a hemisphere. These indents are known as pockets....

Operation of an Air and Screen

As the name implies, air screen machines use a combination of suction air that is drawn through the curtain of grain as it falls from the hopper onto a series of screens. The screens then size the product by width of the kernel, and a final air suction process is used....

Ergot is a type of fungus that grows on many grasses, rye, wheat, barley, and triticale.It infects the floret of the grass or cereal and mimics the process of pollinated grain growing on the plant. On ergot infected plants, a spore destroys the ovary, and then connects to the plant by attaching itself to the plant’s seed nutrition system. An infected floret can also infect other florets by insect dispersal of the asexual spores. That means that an insect can carry millions of the spores to other plants in the region. When mature ergot drops to the ground the fungus remains dormant until proper conditions trigger its fruiting phase, germinate and re-infest an area....