Development of Screw Press for Packing Corn Husk Substrate in Long Polytene Bag for Mushroom Cultivation

Abstract

This research experiment was to develop a prototype of screw press to pack corn husk into long polytene bag to be used as mushroom growing substrate. Screw press was consisted of 8 parts, i.e. base structure, tubular compression screw feeder, tray feeder, tray feeder structure, tapered pipe, compressed tube, screw compressors and power set. The efficiencies of manual hand-bagging and screw press were compared, each of which was carried out by two workers using chopped and un-chopped corn husk as the packing substrate. The bags used had the diameter of 110 mm, the length of 350 mm., and weighed 2.5 kg, after filled. Results showed that hand compressing could produce 64.46 and 48.45 bags per hour for chopped and un-chopped corn husk respectively, while the machine-bagging could produce 95.79 and 97.10 bags per hour. The machine-compressed corn husk bag was able to produce (Hungary strain) Pluerotus mushroom 796.25± g/bag with the biological efficiency of 91.84%.