Morinobu Matsuo

Distinguishing Damaged and Undamaged Chaff in Rice Whole Crop Silage by Image Processing

Rice whole crop silage is used to feed cattle in Japan. The silage contains grains of rice, which are not easily digested because the chaff is indigestible. Partially removing the rice chaff by mechanically scratching the unhulled rice surface was used to make the rice in the chaff digestible, however, it is not easy to inspect the scratching effect objectively. This paper describes the process of distinguishing between damaged chaff and undamaged chaff using image processing, programmed using Java2 SDK. To identify the damaged part on the surface of the chaff, color difference (brown and light white) was used. The chafed rice images were labeled individually for application to image processing one by one. RGB (red, green and blue) channels in a 24-bit color image were divided into three stacks. In the three stacks, the red slice owned more pixel value than any other slice, which reflected the difference between the chaff and damaged part. By adjusting the threshold appropriately, it could distinguish between damaged chaff and undamaged chaff with a probability of more than 90%. Furthermore, the rate of discernment became about 100% by adding shape analysis. This program will be integrated into rice whole crop silage processing equipment. These results are useful not only for the effective use of cattle feed, and maintaining healthy milk and beef cattle, but also for various other image processing uses, for example to distinguish small defects on the surface of grain.

A New Processing Machine to Increase Digestible Grain Rate for Whole Crop Rice Silage

Whole crop rice silage(WCRS) is fed to dairy cows and beef cattle in Japan. The silage contains grains of rice, which are not easily digested because the chaff is indigestible. This paper describes a new type crusher to make chaff digestible. In order to develop a WCRS processing device to decrease indigestible unhulled grain, a chaff removal and grain crushing test using the new device was conducted. Forces required to remove chaff from unhulled rice were measured in three different directions; this test showed that shearing forces were the most effective to remove chaff. Tearing off rice chaff partially by mechanically scratching the unhulled rice surface is adopted to make rice in the chaff digestible. A processing device for WCRS equipped with a new shape rotor was designed, and it could remove chaff from unhulled rice grain continuously without any problem. This machine will be useful for processing better WCRS.

Trial of Detection Ultrasonic Wave Through Raw Forage Crops

The target of our research is to develop a technology for objectively measuring the density in a silo. In the present paper, we attempted to detect ultrasonic waveforms through shredded raw forage crops in order to obtain foundational data on measuring forage crops’ densities by nondestructive means. A function generator, oscilloscope, transmitting ultrasonic transducer, and receiving ultrasonic transducer were used in these experiments. Forage samples that had been formed to cylindrical cells, were made from shredded alfalfa and whole-crop rice. A well-spread ultrasonic wave could be emitted by ultrasonic transducer when rectangle or pulse waves were generated from the function generator. A 16V amplitude rectangle ultrasonic wave could pass through 75mm thick cylindrical forage samples of 650kg/m3 or greater density.