Temperature control for preventing postharvest plagues in grain conservation

Abstract

The postharvest insect plagues are the main cause of grain quality lostduring storage period, fundamentally in tropical climate zones due to thehigh values of temperature and humidity. The storage in RefrigeratedMetallic Storehouses (RMS) is one of the principal technologies for theconservation of large grain quantities during long time period. The atmosphericvariables are modified by using vehicles equipped with cool aircompressors which are shared among several storehouses. The inadequateusage of these cold carts causes that temperature and/or humidity in theRMS run out of the specifications for the maize conservation.This research aims to analyse and forecast the temperature and humiditybehavior in a RMS in order to evaluate and to improve the cooling process.A forecasting model for the temperature in the RMS is built using trendlines, which is employed to plan the adequate usage of the cold carts.