A major proportion of the crop in Asia is harvested manually using sickles over 70 percentage in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh Figure 2 or with types of knives leaving 36 cm wheat straw above the ground level. Methods and timing of harvesting are important factors to total crop yield. In South Asia wheat is harvested in the dry summer months from March to May. Farmers are conscious of the fact that the harvested wheat should be dry enough for threshing and storage. Artificial drying is uncommon. The manually harvested wheat crop is tied into small bundles and stacked in bunches of 10 15 bundles, which are left in the field for one to three days to dry Figure 3. Combine or mechanical harvesters Figure 4 yield a higher proportion of immature grains and pose a moisture hazard, leaving no time for the grain to dry.

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