Azernews.Az

By Mirsaid Ibrahimzade

Huge work is being done to further develop seed processing in Azerbaijan. The example is the Seed Exchange project, through which the country's agriculture sphere will enter a new development stage.

A new plant for processing seeds of grain crops for the State Seed Fund under the Ministry of Agriculture is being built in the village of Khusulu in the Agjabadi region of Azerbaijan.

The State Seed Fund was established due to the country's increased need for new high-yielding and drought-resistant types of seeds, and in order to strengthen food security and state support for agricultural development of Azerbaijan in general.

The plant construction process, which was launched in December 2018, will be finished by the beginning of the sowing season of 2020. The area of the facility is more than one hectare and final works are ongoing. The plant’s production capacity is estimated at five tons of seeds per hour.

There is an administrative building on the territory of the enterprise along with a seed cleaning center and warehouses for unloading and storage of seeds prior to their processing. A modern laboratory has been created there for the inspection of seeds’ quality and productivity.

The processing process includes four stages. At the first stage, the seeds are cleaned from stone fragments and coarse straw. The second stage consists of cleaning from fine straw and oatmeal, while at the third stage - from small wheat, and at the fourth stage - from seed peel of wheat.

Purified wheat is pickled with a substance that destroys the smut pathogen, and then is collected in 50 kilogram bags. The main advantage of the new plant is seed processing with minimal losses.

All necessary measures have been taken so that farmers can observe the process of seed processing at the plant online. In this regard high-resolution cameras are installed. In order to monitor the process of seed processing, farms will first of all be provided with IP address. Thus, distant observation of the seed cleaning process will be possible.

Recently, a seed processing plant was launched in Shaki. The processing capacity of the plant is five tons per hour, and the storage capacity is 3,000 tons. The enterprise with a total area of ​​1.1 hectares consists of an administrative building, a seed cleaning center, vats for unloading seed materials before processing and a storage area. Weighing of seeds is implemented by 60-ton weights.

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Mirsaid Ibrahimzade is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @MirsaidIbrahim1

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