Post-Harvest Farm Operation Losses in Wheat-A Case Study of Kathua District

Abstract

The post-harvest losses have been estimated at different stages in wheat in Kathua district. The losses have been estimated using the survey data collected from 120 farmers. Tabular analysis has been used to estimate the post-harvest losses at different stages. The study brought out that about 82 per cent of the wheat area was harvested manually using sickle and the rest about 18 per cent with harvest-combine. The harvesting loss was high in case of sickle  harvesting. For wheat, the harvesting loss with sickle was about 21 kgs per acre whereas this figure was about 6 kgs per acre with harvest-combine. The threshing loss of wheat was about 21 kgs per acre. The study brought out that storage of wheat in kohl was the most common followed by bharola and metal bin. The storage loss of wheat for family consumption and seed was 4.62 per cent and 3.38 per cent respectively. The marketing loss of wheat was 0.46
per cent of the quantity sold.