In this research, the breakage susceptibility of two classes of lentil (green and red) was evaluated as affected by impact energy and seed moisture content. The experiments were conducted at impact energies of 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3 J, and moisture contents of 10, 12.5, 15, 17.5, 20 and 25% (wet basis). Results showed that red lentil seeds had more breakage than green seeds and the difference in breakage percentage between green and red lentil seeds was significant at 0.01% level according to analysis of variance (p < .01). Percentage breakage of both green and red lentil seeds increased as the energy of impact increased. With increasing the seed moisture content of the both green and red lentils, the breakage percentage of seeds decreased. The average values of seeds breakage green and red lentil seeds varied from 100 to 67.7% and from 100 to 93.1%, respectively, as the seeds moisture content increased from 10 to 25%. The optimum seed moisture at which minimum damage was observed was 17.5% for green lentil and 15% for red lentil. Mathematical relationships composed of lentil seeds moisture content and energy of impact were developed for accurate description of the breakage percentage of green and red lentil seeds under impact loading.
Keywords: Green lentil; harvesting; impact damage; lentil; red lentil.