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Threshing
Threshing or thrashing is the process of loosening the edible part of grain (or other crop) from the straw to which it is attached. It is the step in grain preparation after reaping. Threshing does not remove the bran from the grain. History of threshing Through much of the important history of agriculture, threshing was time-consuming and usually laborious, with a bushel of wheat taking about an hour. In the late 18th century, before threshing was mechanized, about one-quarter of agricultural labor was devoted to it. It is likely that in the earliest days of agriculture the little grain that was raised was shelled by hand, but as the quantity increased the grain was probably beaten out with a stick, or the sheaf beaten upon the ground. An improvement on this, as the quantity further increased, was the practice of the ancient Egyptians of spreading out the loosened sheaves on a circular enclosure of hard ground, and driving oxen, sheep or other animals round and round over i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Threshing Sledge
A threshing board, also known as threshing sledge, is an obsolete farm implements, agricultural implement used to separate cereals from their straw; that is, to threshing, thresh. It is a thick board, made with a variety of slats, with a shape between rectangular and trapezoidal, with the frontal part somewhat narrower and curved upward (like a sled, sled or sledge) and whose bottom is covered with lithic flakes or razor-like metal blades. One form, once common by the Mediterranean Sea, was "about three to four feet wide and six feet deep (these dimensions often vary, however), consisting of two or three wooden planks assembled to one another, of more than four inches wide, in which is several hard and cutting flints crammed into the bottom part pull along over the grains. In the rear part there is a large ring nailed, that is used to tie the rope that pulls it and to which two horses are usually harnessed; and a person, sitting on the threshing board, drives it in circles over t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Threshing Machine
A threshing machine or a thresher is a piece of agricultural machinery, farm equipment that separates grain seed from the plant stem, stalks and husks. It does so by beating the plant to make the seeds fall out. Before such machines were developed, threshing was done by hand with Flail (tool), flails: such hand threshing was very laborious and time-consuming, taking about one-quarter of agricultural labour by the 18th century. Mechanization of this process removed a substantial amount of drudgery from farm labour. The first threshing machine was invented circa 1786 by the Scottish engineer Andrew Meikle, and the subsequent adoption of such machines was one of the earlier examples of the mechanised agriculture, mechanization of agriculture. During the 19th century, threshers and mechanical reapers and reaper-binders gradually became widespread and made grain production much less laborious. Separate reaper-binders and threshers have largely been replaced by machines that combine all ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Combine Harvester
The modern combine harvester, also called a combine, is a machine designed to harvest a variety of cultivated seeds. Combine harvesters are one of the most economically important labour-saving inventions, significantly reducing the fraction of the population engaged in agriculture. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, rice, oats, rye, barley, Maize, corn (maize), sorghum, millet, soybeans, flax (linseed), sunflowers and rapeseed (canola). The separated straw (consisting of stems and any remaining leaves with limited nutrients left in it) is then either chopped onto the field and ploughed back in, or laid out in rows, ready to be Baler, baled and used for bedding and cattle feed. The name of the machine is derived from the fact that the harvester combined multiple separate harvesting operations – Reaper, reaping, threshing or winnowing and gathering – into a single process around the start of the 20th century. A combine harvester still performs its functions ac ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stripper (agriculture)
Stripper is a type of harvesting machine designed for harvesting grain using the method of stripping standing crops. Unlike a conventional combine harvester, this machine collects grain by stripping the spikes only, without cutting the culms at their base. Harvesting grain by stripping was known as early as the 1st century AD but was later abandoned. Today, it is used on a small scale thanks to the implementation of specialized harvesting headers in combine harvesters. The stripper was common in Australia in the late 19th and early 20th century. John Ridley is now accepted as its inventor, though John Wrathall Bull argued strongly for the credit. Description Harvesting is the final stage of crop cultivation. It should be done as quickly as possible after the grain has reached maturity. Leaving the harvest in the field can lead to partial or even total loss of its value due to adverse weather conditions, fires, and wildlife. The speed of harvesting depends on the throughput o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Barn
A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain.Allen G. Noble, ''Traditional Buildings: A Global Survey of Structural Forms and Cultural Functions'' (New York: Tauris, 2007), 30. As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In the British Isles, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures for unthreshed cereals and fodder, the terms byre or shippon being applied to cow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known as stables. In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known as byre-dwellings (or housebarns in US literature). In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such as threshing. Etymology The word ''barn'' c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flail (tool)
A flail is an agricultural tool used for threshing, the process of separating grains from their husks. It is usually made from two or more large sticks attached by a short chain; one stick is held and swung, causing the other (the swipple) to strike a pile of grain, loosening the husks. The precise dimensions and shape of flails were determined by generations of farmers to suit the particular grain they were harvesting. For example, flails used by farmers in Quebec to process wheat were generally made from two pieces of wood, the handle being about long by in diameter, and the second stick being about long by about in diameter, with a slight taper towards the end. Flails for other grains, such as rice or spelt, would have had different dimensions. Flails have generally fallen into disuse in many nations because of the availability of technologies such as combine harvesters that require much less manual labour. But in many places, such as Minnesota, wild rice can only be harve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chaff
Chaff (; ) is dry, scale-like plant material such as the protective seed casings of cereal grains, the scale-like parts of flowers, or finely chopped straw. Chaff cannot be digested by humans, but it may be fed to livestock, ploughed into soil, or burned. Etymology "Chaff" comes from Middle English , from Old English , related to Old High German ', "husk". Grain chaff In grasses (including cereals such as rice, barley, oats, and wheat), the ripe seed is surrounded by thin, dry, scaly bracts (called glumes, lemmas, and paleas), forming a dry husk (or hull) around the grain. Once it is removed, it is often referred to as chaff. In wild cereals and in the primitive domesticated einkorn,Potts, D. T. (1996) ''Mesopotamia Civilization: The Material Foundations'' Cornell University Press. p. 62. . emmer and spelt wheats, the husks enclose each seed tightly. Before the grain can be used, the husks must be removed. The process of loosening the chaff from the grain so as to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andrew Meikle
Andrew Meikle (5 May 1719 – 27 November 1811) was a Scottish mechanical engineer credited with inventing the threshing machine, a device used to remove the outer husks from grains of wheat. He also had a hand in assisting Firbeck in the invention of the Rotherham Plough. This was regarded as one of the key developments of the British Agricultural Revolution in the late 18th century. The invention was made around 1786, although some say he only improved on an earlier design by a Scottish farmer named Leckie. Michael Stirling is said to have invented a rotary threshing machine in 1758 which for forty years was used to process all the corn on his farm at Gateside, no published works have yet been found but his son William made a sworn statement to his minister to this fact, he also gave him the details of his father's death in 1796. Earlier (c.1772), he also invented windmill " spring sails", which replaced the simple canvas designs previously used with sails made from a series ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flax
Flax, also known as common flax or linseed, is a flowering plant, ''Linum usitatissimum'', in the family Linaceae. It is cultivated as a food and fiber crop in regions of the world with temperate climates. In 2022, France produced 75% of the world's supply of flax. Textiles made from flax are known in English as linen and are traditionally used for bed sheets, underclothes, and table linen. Its oil is known as linseed oil. In addition to referring to the plant, the word "flax" may refer to the unspun fibers of the flax plant. The plant species is known only as a cultivated plant and appears to have been domesticated just once from the wild species '' Linum bienne'', called pale flax. The plants called "flax" in New Zealand are, by contrast, members of the genus '' Phormium''. Description Several other species in the genus ''Linum'' are similar in appearance to ''L. usitatissimum'', cultivated flax, including some that have similar blue flowers, and others with wh ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agriculture
Agriculture encompasses crop and livestock production, aquaculture, and forestry for food and non-food products. Agriculture was a key factor in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to live in the cities. While humans started gathering grains at least 105,000 years ago, nascent farmers only began planting them around 11,500 years ago. Sheep, goats, pigs, and cattle were domesticated around 10,000 years ago. Plants were independently cultivated in at least 11 regions of the world. In the 20th century, industrial agriculture based on large-scale monocultures came to dominate agricultural output. , small farms produce about one-third of the world's food, but large farms are prevalent. The largest 1% of farms in the world are greater than and operate more than 70% of the world's farmland. Nearly 40% of agricultural land is found on farms larger than . However, five of every six farm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ancient Egypt
Ancient Egypt () was a cradle of civilization concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in Northeast Africa. It emerged from prehistoric Egypt around 3150BC (according to conventional Egyptian chronology), when Upper and Lower Egypt were amalgamated by Menes, who is believed by the majority of List of Egyptologists, Egyptologists to have been the same person as Narmer. The history of ancient Egypt unfolded as a series of stable kingdoms interspersed by the "Periodization of ancient Egypt, Intermediate Periods" of relative instability. These stable kingdoms existed in one of three periods: the Old Kingdom of Egypt, Old Kingdom of the Early Bronze Age; the Middle Kingdom of Egypt, Middle Kingdom of the Middle Bronze Age; or the New Kingdom of Egypt, New Kingdom of the Late Bronze Age. The pinnacle of ancient Egyptian power was achieved during the New Kingdom, which extended its rule to much of Nubia and a considerable portion of the Levant. After this period, Egypt ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Winnowing
Winnowing is a process by which chaff is separated from grain. It can also be used to remove pests from stored grain. Winnowing usually follows threshing in grain preparation. In its simplest form, it involves throwing the mixture into the air so that the wind blows away the lighter chaff, while the heavier grains fall back down for recovery. Techniques included using a winnowing fan (a shaped winnowing basket, basket shaken to raise the chaff) or using a tool (a winnowing fork or shovel) on a pile of harvested grain. In Greek culture The winnowing-fan (λίκνον [''líknon''], also meaning a "cradle") featured in the rites accorded Dionysus and in the Eleusinian Mysteries: "it was a simple agricultural implement taken over and mysticized by the religion of Dionysus," Jane Ellen Harrison remarked. ''Dionysus Liknites'' ("Dionysus of the winnowing fan") was wakened by the Dionysian women, in this instance called ''Thyia (naiad), Thyiades'', in a cave on Mount Parnassus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
