Demonstration Fusarium Removal Machine Engineering

Fusarium Head Blight is a very common fungus disease prominent in small grain cereal throughout the world. This fungus infected wheat crop across Canada from Ontario to Alberta. The economic losses in Canada are estimated at $80 million annually over the last decade due to yield loss and quality loss. Fusarium has been detected for the first time in northern British Columbia. In the foreseeable future, Fusarium is expected to increase in both incidence and geographic distribution in Canada. The overall goal of this project is to design and build a pilot scale demonstration machine for the separation of Fusarium damaged kernels. The demonstration machine shall be based on the specification document appended plus the improvements and enhancements developed under this plan. The intended throughput for the demonstration unit is 6 tonnes of wheat per hour. The major deliverables are the machine itself, the dies and jigs required to produce components and the engineering documents required to commence manufacturing. The demonstration machine will be used to field test the technology, attract capital to support manufacturing, and market the technology to wheat producers.

Faculty Supervisor:

Dr. Satya Panigrahi

Student:

Anup Rana

Partner:

Spectrum Scientific

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

University of Saskatchewan