Shelling corn or maize is, in general, the responsibility of the farming woman, whether child, youth or aged. The corn shelling operation is usually carried out manually and hence, a tedious job. It consumes a lot of time, labor and energy of the women force in agriculture. Relieving these agricultural women workers from such drudgery is a major challenge for researchers and development workers in the country. Though some farmers in the country use manual corn sheller developed by Agricultural Tools Factory (ATF) at Birgunj or Development Consulting Services (DCS) at Butwal to some extent, but access to such modern corn-shelling device is beyond the imagination for the majority of the women from the rural sector. Realizing the drudgery of the rural farming community, scientists at Agricultural Engineering Division (AED) under NARC have developed different prototypes of improved tubular corn sheller including manual as well as pedal operated equipment. Various prototypes of both manual and pedal operated corn shellers were designed, fabricated and tested by the researchers at the AED. These AED prototypes of the manual corn shellers are the improved version of the lnternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) design, while the design or the pedal corn sheller is of the AED itself During performance testing of the manual corn sheller, the shelling capacity and the efficiency were found to be 13.8 kg/h (146 cobs/hr) and 94.6% respectively at 9.2% moisture content of maize kernels. Similarly, in case or pedal operated tubular corn sheller, the shelling capacity of 27.9 kp/hr (318 cobs/hr) and the shelling efficiency of 93.1% were obtained at maize kernel moisture content of 12.7%. The shelling capacity of pedal corn sheller was 102% more than that of manual corn sheller.

Shelling corn or maize is, in general, the responsibility of the farming woman, whether child, youth or aged. The corn shelling operation is usually carried out manually and hence, a tedious job. It consumes a lot of time, labor and energy of the women force in agriculture. Relieving these agricultural women workers from such drudgery is a major challenge for researchers and development workers in the country. Though some farmers in the country use manual corn sheller developed by Agricultural Tools Factory (ATF) at Birgunj or Development Consulting Services (DCS) at Butwal to some extent, but access to such modern corn-shelling device is beyond the imagination for the majority of the women from the rural sector. Realizing the drudgery of the rural farming community, scientists at Agricultural Engineering Division (AED) under NARC have developed different prototypes of improved tubular corn sheller including manual as well as pedal operated equipment. Various prototypes of both manual and pedal operated corn shellers were designed, fabricated and tested by the researchers at the AED. These AED prototypes of the manual corn shellers are the improved version of the lnternational Rice Research Institute (IRRI) design, while the design or the pedal corn sheller is of the AED itself During performance testing of the manual corn sheller, the shelling capacity and the efficiency were found to be 13.8 kg/h (146 cobs/hr) and 94.6% respectively at 9.2% moisture content of maize kernels. Similarly, in case or pedal operated tubular corn sheller, the shelling capacity of 27.9 kp/hr (318 cobs/hr) and the shelling efficiency of 93.1% were obtained at maize kernel moisture content of 12.7%. The shelling capacity of pedal corn sheller was 102% more than that of manual corn sheller.