MULTAN: Agriculture experts have advised farmers to harvest Irri varieties of paddy at a time when granules have 20-22 per cent moisture.

Moreover, granules on top of the fruit must be ripened fully and the rest below may be green but full in size, says a release issued by the media liaison unit of the Punjab agriculture department on Monday.

After harvest, the yield should be collected and arranged in the shape of smaller stacks. Combined harvester should be applied only if it can be adjusted to paddy to minimize loss of granules.

Speed of combined harvester should be adjusted in accordance with the variety, moisture and crop condition.

The crop should have minimum moisture to lessen granule losses during machine harvest.

Some expert should be hired to operate the harvester and it should be stopped after some time to assess its performance.

In case of harvesting crop having higher percentage of moisture in the morning, farmers should slow down the movement of combined harvester but enhance the speed of its cutter.

Three-fourth portion of cutter bar should be in the crop to avoid choking of cutter bar, crop elevator and threshing drum.

Source: APP