PHYSICAL PROPERTIES OF COMMON BEAN SEEDS ACCORDING TO LEVELS OF WATER

Abstract

Once the physical characteristics of the products are modified by drying, it is essential the study of the physical properties of agricultural products during this process, because such changes can influence the sizing of equipment and systems for harvesting, handling, transportation, drying, processing and storage. Thus, this study aimed to determine the seeds physical properties from two cultivars of common bean (Valente and Pontal ) for different water contents (10, 12, 14, 16 and 18% water content). It was used completely randomized design, factorial scheme 2 x 5, with four replications. It was concluded that the measurements of orthogonal axes of seeds (“a”, “b” and “c”) belonging to the common bean cultivars Valente and Pontal, the values of projected area and geometric diameter were directly influenced by water content, decreasing the values with decreasing water content. However values of sphericity and circularity have different proceeding, increasing these proprieties for the cultivar seed Valente and decreasing for Pontal, due to the decrease of water content from 18 to 10% (b.u.) .The values of bulk density and real density of common bean seeds were inversely proportional to the water content or in other words increasing their values with the reduction of water content.