Effect of crushing on sun drying and compaction of forage crops

The effect of chopping and crushing on drying characteristics of forage crops namely, sorghum, barley and cluster beans was studied. Chopping and crushing of these samples were done to hasten the sun drying. It was found that chopped and crushed samples could be sun dried from an initial moisture content of about 66.7% to 12.3–13.8% in 6 h. The dried samples were compressed at 70–280 kg/cm² pressures to form the feed blocks using a feed block formation machine. The maximum compression ratio of the blocks obtained with sorghum, barley and cluster bean was 7.6, 6.0 and 7.4, respectively. This indicated that 6.0–7.6 times of storage and transportation space could be saved.