Abstract: In order to explore the effects of hilly and mountainous topography and processing technology on the postharvest quality and economic benefits of chestnut (Castanea mollissima Blume), the key links such as adaptive shelling and hot air-microwave co-drying were carried out in the main production area of Tai'an City, Shandong Province. The operating parameters of key equipment were obtained by establishing the kinematic model of the shelling device and analyzing of the drying process system. The results showed that in the hilly environment with a slope of 15°-35°, with four-point hydraulic self-leveling chassis combined with 18-25 Hz frequency conversion vibration, the mechanical damage rate of shelling was reduced from 13.5% to 2.3% of the traditional plain model. In the drying process, hot air-microwave synergistic technology (with constant hot air at 50 ℃ and hightemperature pulsed microwave at 75 ℃) effectively passivated the activity of polyphenol oxidase (PPO) and achieved a browning inhibition rate of 94%, which was better than that of traditional open-air drying. Further using hyperspectral intelligent grading technology, the product grading accuracy reached 98.8%. The comprehensive benefit evaluation results showed that the integrated system could reduce the unit processing cost by 27%, increase the high-quality kernel rate by 33.6%, and shorten the payback period to 1.4 years.

Key words: Castanea mollissima Blume, hilly and mountainous regions, mechanized processing, slope-adaptive, process optimization, economic benefits