The objective of this work was to evaluate the immediate and latent effects of four harvesting moisture contents associated with four levels of drying-air temperature on the corn quality, harvested with 25, 22, 16.5 and 15% wb. moisture content and dried with air temperatures of 40, 60, 80 and 100 ºC until the final moisture content of 13% wb. The grains were submitted to analyses of impurity content and foreign materials, apparent specific mass, index of damages, index of creaking and breakage susceptibility. In general, it may be mentioned that the grains harvested with moisture contents of 15 and 16.5% and dried at air temperatures of 40 and 60 ºC resulted in better corn quality.
Zea mays L.; storage; mechanical damage
