Beneficiamento de sementes de cornichão (Lotus corniculatus L.) através do recobrimento em leito de jorro

Abstract

Nowadays, Rio Grande do Sul has livestock feed based almost exclusively on high forage pastures. The birds foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus L.) is a forage that has stood out in the region of the campaign due to its great resistance to the cold and the frosts, but it is a very small and light seed, which makes difficult the use and regulation of agricultural technologies. The seed coating is a beneficiation technique that has been promising to correct faults and to improve the characteristics of seed lots, to remove contaminants, among others. The spouted bed is an equipment that can be used in the coating of seeds because its cyclic movement combined with the atomization provides a good adhesion of the suspension to the particle and a suitable drying resulting in a regular and uniform coverage. Thus, the present study presented aimed at making the study of coating birdsfoot trefoil seeds in spouted bed. For the accomplishment of this work we used seeds of birds foot trefoil ceded by Embrapa Pecuária Sul (Bagé, RS). The methodology consisted in the physical, physiological and morphological characterization of the seeds; studying different formulations based on polymer components for the coating suspension; to study the fluid dynamics of the seeds in the spouted bed; to study the process of coating the seeds in the spouted bed and to evaluate the quality of the final product. In order to evaluate the coating, an experimental design of the central rotational compound type (DCCR) was used, having as independent variables the air temperature and the suspension flow rate and as responses to process efficiency, particle growth and the weight of one thousand seeds (PMS). The results obtained for the fluid dynamics showed that the mass load that best suited the process was 500 g of seeds; the polymer films formed after the spouted bed coating provided a thin film on the seeds; the results of the process efficiency were between 6 to 50 %, for particle growth between 0,3 to 2,9 % and for PMS between 1,10 to 1,52 g. The statistical evaluation allowed to verify the effect of the experimental conditions (air temperature and suspension flow) on the evaluated responses. It was considered as more satisfactory the experiment that provided higher values for the process efficiency (50,36 %) and particle growth (2,91 %), from the coating with a temperature of 75 °C and a flow rate of the suspension of 13,4 mL/min. Through the analyzes performed for the final product it was verified that there was an increase in the size and the weight of the seeds. It was also observed that the seeds were not harmed physiologically because their reserves of substances and structure were not damaged justifying the accomplishment of this work.