In order to take full advantage of annual precipitation in dry land agriculture, harvesting entire runoff is essential.In a two-year farmer's field demonstration at Vijayapur (Karnataka), moisture conservation practices (compartmental bunding, tied ridgind and conventional method) were evaluated for sorghum grown under rainfed conditions.The results indicated that compartmental bunding conserved 15.5 and 24.07 per cent for 2018-19 and 14.07 and 30.55 per cent for 2019-20 more soil moisture as compared to tied ridging and farmer's practice treatments.Compartmental bunding showed better performance in plant height, grain yield, fodder yield, gross return, net return and B:C ratio over tied ridging and farmer's practice.Compartmental bunding practice also exhibited higher grain yield of sorghum 2740 kg ha -1 and 2894 kg ha -1 (for 2018-19 and 2019-20), fodder yield 5621 kg ha -1 and 5883 kg ha -1 (for 2018-19 and 2019-20), gross return Rs. 35100 and Rs.358870 (for 2018-19 and 2019-20), net return Rs. 22700 and Rs.23580 (for 2018-19 and 2019-20) and B:C ratio 2. 79 and 2.87 (for 2018-19 and 2019-20).
Improper weed control methods can cause about 30–35 per cent reduction in crop yield. The power operated paddy weeder was designed and developed for weeding of paddy crops. In Konkan region, paddy is the major crop cultivated under wet land condition. The hand weeding method using labours is widely adopted at present for paddy. It is costly and drudgerious. Manually operated cono weeders are being used in some of the pockets of Konkan. It’s capacity is less (upto 0.12-0.15 ha/day) and its operation is also heavy due to its weight (7.8 kg). Therefore developed power weeder was designed. It was consisted of engine, gear box, propeller shaft, rotor with blade and main frame and float. The reduction gear box (ratio32.5:1) was used to reduce the speed to 200 rpm. The two types of rotors were developed viz., L shape blade and hexagonal serrated blade. The serrated blade has resulted into 9.41 per cent higher weeding efficiency than L shape blade. The L shape blade has resulted into 1.02 per cent minimum plant damage than serrated blade. The lowest fuel consumption of power weeder was found with of L shape blade as 0.576 l/h at 40 DAS while the maximum fuel consumption was found on using of serrated blade as 0.68 l/h at 20 DAS. The maximum field capacity was found with L shape blade (0.0266 ha/h) than serrated blade (0.0213 ha/h) at 40DAS which is 30.39 per cent higher.
This article reviews the basic relationships between the soil parameters, tool geometry and operational parameters on the nature of soil disturbance and draft of the tillage tool.These relations will assist designers and operators of tillage implement or tillage tool in selecting the optimal design of the soil working elements and their supporting frame.
In this study, Amla segments dried in different drying methods like sun drying and solar tunnel drying and with different pre-treatments like 2 per cent Sodium Chloride and 0.1 per cent Potassium metabisulphite solutions. The treated samples significantly showed variations in some quality parameter of amla segments. The samples dried in solar tunnel dryer gave lower moisture content compared with that of sun dried samples. The lowest water activity were found to be in 2 per cent Sodium Chloride pre-treated amla segments dried in solar tunnel drying. Solar drying of pre-treated amla segments in solar tunnel dryer resulted in 20-30 per cent reduction in drying time as compared to open-air sun drying. The highest rehydration ratio was found to be in 0.1 per cent Potassium metabisulphite treated amla samples. The quality of rehydrated amla segments dried in solar tunnel dryer was superior when compared to amla segments dried in open sun drying method. The highest vitamin C retention was found to be 125.68 (mg/100 g) in untreated amla samples dried in solar tunnel dryer. The quality of rehydrated amla segments dried in solar tunnel dryer was superior when compared to amla segments dried in open sun drying method. The problem of interruption by rain and cloudy period was solved. The samples dried in the solar tunnel dryer were completely protected from rain, insectsand contamination by dust and were of good quality dried product.
The present study was carried out to predict the performance different type’s weeder in cotton crop so that efficient machine can be selected by farmer. The crop and machine performance parameter were recorded at three stages of cotton crop i.e. pre-square, square and flowering. The soil resistance was recorded before, just after weeding (3rd stage) and at the time of harvest. Yield data (g/plant) was recorded under all the treatments taken in both varieties. The weeding efficiency of different weeder was found between 74 to 89 per cent. The field capacity of tractor operated inter row rotary weeder was in the range of 0.54 to 0.59 ha/h whereas it was 0.8 ha/ h in tractor operated high clearance cultivator, 0.16 ha/h with engine operated power weeder and 0.05 ha/h with manual hand hoe. The per cent saving in cost of operation with mechanical weeder over manual hand hoe was in the range of 80 to 93. The B:C ratio of mechanical weeder selected for study was in the range of 1.57 to 4.4 and payback period was in the range of 0.44 to 1.7 years. Time saving over manual hand hoe in weeding operation with the use of tractor operated weeder was 90 to 93 per cent whereas in engine operated weeder it was 68.7 per cent over manual hand hoe. The per cent saving in labour requirement with the use of mechanical weeder was in the range of 96 to 99 per cent over manual hand hoe. From result obtained from the study tractor operated weeder (operating width= 1500mm) was found suitable for cotton crop.
Broad bed furrow (BBF) and tied ridging (TR) were evaluated in ten farmer's fields during rainy-winter (Kharif-Rabi) seasons of 2018-19 and 2019-20 in Vertisols at Vijayapur, Karnataka.Adopting BBF and tied ridging increased the grain yield by 24.64, 11.68 per cent for 2018-19 and 26.27, 11.21 per cent for 2019-20, respectively.The increase in grain yield indicates that BBF is effective for in-situ rainwater conservation and improving profile soil moisture in Vertisols.However BBF technology conserved higher soil moisture as compared to tied ridging and farmer's practice over the entire crop growth period.Higher gross and net returns with greater B:C ratio was observed with layout of farmers fields with BBF technology.
India has world's largest production of milk and 50-55 per cent of its production being used for the manufacture of different Traditional Indian Dairy Products (TIDP).The manufacture of traditional dairy products on large scale requires mechanization and optimization of operating conditions in order to get uniform acceptable quality.Scraped Surface Heat Exchanger (SSHE) of appropriate design is found suitable for production of highly viscous dairy products.Bottle gourd Halwa is one of the Traditional Indian Dairy Products (TIDP) prepared from grated bottle gourd cooked with Ghee, sugar, Khoa, and flavoured by spices like cardamom.The various unit operations involved in preparation of bottle gourd Halwa are shredding, cooking and desiccation with sugar and Khoa.The study was taken to evaluate heat transfer performance of the SSHE during manufacture of bottle gourd Halwa under variable operating conditions.The horizontal SSHE was used for the manufacturing of Halwa using the recipe standardized by Response Surface Methodology.The performance of the SSHE was evaluated at different scraper speeds and operating steam pressures.The rate of evaporation ranged between 12.379 and 19.947 kg water/h during manufacturing of Halwa in SSHE at different operating conditions.It was observed that overall heat transfer co-efficients (U-values) increased with the increase in scraper speed and steam pressure in range of 406 -600 W/m 2 K.The values of steam consumption and electrical power consumption under different operating conditions during manufacture of bottle gourd Halwa ranged from 18.56 to 36.76 kg/h and 0.398 to 0.410 kWh, respectively.The values of specific steam consumption ranged from 1.659 to 1.697 kg steam/kg water evaporated.The total heat losses during manufacture of Halwa in the SSHE ranged from 20.84 to 23.83 per cent of the heat input at different steam pressures and scraper speeds.
The measure of infiltration of water into the soil is an important indication concerning: the efficiency of irrigation and drainage optimizing the availability of the water for plant improving the yield of the crop and minimizing the erosion. By knowing proper infiltration characteristics and intake capacity of soil, deep percolation losses can be prevented and proper utilization of water may take place. Keeping the importance of infiltration characteristics in mind the study of infiltration was taken. In this study most appropriate methods for determination of infiltration under different land uses were selected among most popular methods. Some of the wellknown equations are Kostiakov equation, Modified Kostiakov equation and Horton equation. These three equations were studied for the assessment infiltration equation. Assessment of these equations was done under different lands covers such as Cultivated land cover, Pasture land cover. From the analysis of the data, it is concluded that for cultivated land cover correlation coefficients for cumulative infiltration were found to be 0.9569, 0.9687 and 0.9724 for Kostiakov, Modified Kostiakov and Horton equation, respectively. As correlation co-efficient for Horton equation is higher, this equation was found best fit for cultivated land cover. Similarly, for pasture land cover the correlation co-efficients for cumulative infiltration were found to be 0.9876, 0.9706 and 0.9891 for Kostiakov, Modified Kostiakov and Horton equation, respectively. As correlation co-efficient for Horton equation is higher, this equation was found best fit for pasture land cover.
Principal Component Analysis was carried out for grouping the different parameters into the Principal Components.To understand the behaviour of all the parameters pertaining to study areas, and to reduce the dimensionality of database, the data pertaining to twelve parameters of ten small watersheds were submitted for Principal Component Analysis.The method of components analysis, then, involves the rotation in the total variable space -an orthogonal or uncorrelated transformation wherein each of the n original variables is describable, in terms of the n new principal components.An important feature of the new components is that they account, in turn, for a maximum amount of variance of the variables.Analysis extracted three components as a Principal Components with 10 parameters, accounting for a total variance of 97.256 per cent.The first component is highly correlated with R e , R c , S b and L bw accounting for 68.52 per cent variance.Second component is strongly correlated with R N accounting for 18.60 per cent variance and Third with S c , accounting for 10.13 per cent variance.Finally, these extracted 10 parameters were used for modeling for prediction of sediment yield and runoff from selected small watersheds of Tapi basin, Maharashtra, India.
Water is limiting factor for crop production and development.The success of dry land farming mainly depends on the evenly distributed rainfall during crop growing period when the rainfall before insufficient to meet the potential needs of transpiration, the root zone of soil moisture is utilized for transpiration.This causes soil moisture storage and a situation, which may be designed as group drought occurs.Water deficit study is one of the important aspects in rainfed farming as well as in water resource planning management and allocation of irrigation water studies on water deficit pattern during different year would provide basic information for evaluating climate potential of an area for agriculture planning and development.Soil moisture plays an important role in crop productivity besides weather parameters in rainfed in general and drought prone areas of Jalgaon district in particular, plants survive on available water of the soil.Soil Moisture Adequacy Index above 25% is found from 23 rd MW, it is 100% in 22 nd MW at Jamner station.The average weekly rainfall is available predominantly from 23 rd MW at Jamner station in Kharif and 41 st MW at Rabi season.Soil Moisture Adequacy Index above 25% from 23 rd MW and found to be 100% in 51 st MW at Padalsare station.The average weekly rainfall is available predominantly from 25 th MW at Padalsare station in Kharif and 41 st MW at Rabi season.
This study was carried out to determine the total water requirement needed for 10000 hectares of rice, cotton, maize, chillies, black gram, green gram, sugarcane and other crops are commonly grown in the area, which are being cultivated in appapuram channel command of Krishna Western Delta (KWD) in Kharif and Rabi seasons, respectively.In KWD, water is supplied continuously until about 10 days before harvesting.Water is required to bring the fields to saturation, and to establish a layer of water in the fields to facilitate land preparation, Saturation of water, effective rainfall, evapotranspiration and seepage percolation will be calculated for determination of crop water requirement during the pre-saturation and normal growth periods.The computer simulation model AquaCrop was applied to estimate crop water requirements and yield of rice, cotton chilli, and maize green gram and block gram crops grown in both the seasons.The decennial meteorological data for years 2000-2015.The study showed that the total of 1010, 656.0, 573.3, 816.2, 672.2 mm and 552.2 mm of irrigation water for paddy maize blackgram chilli, cotton, and green gram crops during Kharif and Rabi seasons, respectively which clearly show that there is a misutilization of canal water and non-utilization of ground water to the extent recommended hence the area under cultivation is also lower than the actual potential.
A rotavator is popularly used to reduce the amount of time and labour spent in field preparation. However, wear of rotavator blades is very high, especially in sandy soil, which significantly affects its working life. The wear test of selected rotavator blades were conducted in circular soil bin made up of different steel materials like medium carbon steel (M1), high carbon steel (M2) and boron steel (M3) to observe the effect of different steel materials on wear. The wear rate of M1 blade, M2 blade and M3 blade were 26.36, 24.96 and 24.05 mg/min, respectively. The boron steel blade was found having maximum hardness 41.8 Rc followed by high carbon steel blade (41.3 Rc) and medium carbon steel blade (39.9 Rc).
This paper describes some of the engineering properties of six chilli (Capsicum annuum L.) cultivars, viz., Byadgi, Guntur sanam, Mathania, Kashmiri, Reshampatti and Teja which would aid in designing the equipment and apparatus for processing of dry chilli such as sorting, grading drying, destalking, size reduction and transportation. The significant difference was observed among the geometrical properties (length, width, and thickness), gravimetric properties (bulk and true density), optical (color scales L*, a*, b*), aerodynamic (terminal velocity), mechanical (hardness) and frictional (co-efficient of friction). Among geometrical properties, the whole fruit lengths were ranged from 83.83 to146.03 mm, width 9.66 to 41.41 mm and thickness 3.86 to 11.11 mm. The stalk length, width and crown height of the fruit ranged from 25.90 to 34.87, 3.03 to 5.64 and 4.11 to 8.43, respectively, these values can be used to fabricate chilli destalking machine. The bulk and true density were observed from 100 to 130 kg/m3 and 260 to 560 kg/m3, respectively, these values can be used to design the hopper or in vacuum packing. Colour scales varied from 19.80 to 27.56 for L*, 7.21 to 23.15 for a* and 8.53 to 17.61 for b*, these values may be used to colour graders for grading the chilli based on colour. The hardness of the fruit pod varied from 37 to 198.03 N/mm2 and for stalk from 32.83 to 127.54 N/mm2, these values may be used to design size reducing, seed extracting equipment. The terminal velocity (experimental and theoretical) values varied from 3.66 to 9.03 m/s and 5.33 to 10.69 m/s, respectively, these values may be used to design dryers. Coefficient of friction values for MS, aluminum and for steel varied from 0.46 to 0.65, 0.36 to 0.55 and 0.34 to 0.48, respectively, these values may be used in designing the hopper, conveyors and destalking machines.
Drying is an essential process in the preservation of agricultural products.Various drying methods are employed to dry different agricultural products.Each method has its own advantages and limitations.Choosing the right drying system is thus important in the process of drying agricultural products.An experimental study was performed to determine the drying characteristics of bael pulp subjected to drying in open sun, hot air oven at 60 0 C and 70 0 C and cabinet tray dryer at 60 0 C and 70 0 C with different varieties Pant Aparna (V 1 ), Pant Shivani (V 2 ) and Pant Urvashi (V 3 ).The entire drying process took place in the falling rate period.Drying curves were constructed using non-dimensional moisture ratio (MR) and time.Drying is the most widely used and a primary method for preservation.According to the experimental result this study revealed that the V 1 (Variety Pant Aparna) sample required lower drying time than the other Varieties sample.The drying time decrease with increase of drying air temperature.It was observed that drying process took place in falling rate period.The result indicated that the cabinet tray dryer at 70 0 C was found better drying characteristics compare to other drying temperatures and methods.
Gravity fed drip irrigation techniques have been used in the small agricultural production as an advanced water saving irrigation method in recent times. However advantageous this method, there are still some difficulties in projecting the efficiency of such systems. Most especially, feasibility study of gravity drip irrigation for small scale farmers is very important in order to set up an efficient irrigation system. This study is focused to test the feasibility of the drip irrigation the experiment was run and Uniformity co-efficient and Distribution uniformity. In the study, the discharge of emitters at 1.0 m and 0.5 m emitter spacing and 1.0 m lateral spacing and for four irrigation durations (15 minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes and 120 minutes) was measured. The results clearly indicates that the selected emitters of 4 LPH rated discharge and 2.0 kg/cm2 pressure when used under gravity drip irrigation and at about 0.5-0.8 kg/cm2 pressure, discharges between 1.8-2.5 LPH. 6. The gravity drip irrigation can meet the water requirement of vegetable crops with acceptable UC and DU and can be a better solution for small scale farmers of the region in order to save the scarce fresh water resources.
In this study different recipes of Jamun Ready To Serve (RTS) was standardized to explore the processing potential of Jamun, a minor fruit. There were five different possibilities of recipes. The RTS prepared from the recipes 13% Juice, 12% TSS and 0.28% Acidity gave highest organoleptic quality score followed by RTS prepared from 10% Juice, 12% TSS and 0.30% Acidity and the quality of the prepared RTS was maintained up to fifth month at ambient temperature.
Cross-linking of degraded lignin components present to bio-oil increases the density and causes instability during storage. Bio-oil quality and quantity from wheat straw was improved by alkaline and enzymatic treatment before pyrolysis. Alkaline pretreatment reduced the lignin content from 18 per cent to 10 per cent. Enzymatic pretreatment using -glucosidase and cellulase in ratio 5:10, 10:10, 15:10 U for 24, 48, 72 h was optimized by using Response Surface Methodology (RSM) and eliminated 3.1 per cent lignin. The maximum reducing sugar and glucose content was found 24.2 g/L and 15.488 g/L, respectively. Bio-oil yield by fast pyrolysis of treated and untreated wheat straw was 30 per cent and 27 per cent, respectively. Bio-oil of the treated wheat straw exhibited increased in pH, higher density and decreased in viscosity. The flash point of bio-oil from treated wheat straw was very close to commercial diesel. Bio-oil was characterized by FTIR and GC-MS analysis.
The self propelled vertical conveyor reaper is commonly used for harvesting wheat, rice etc. It has become a main or the sole of mechanical power source on small and medium size farms in India. The operators of VCR are exposed to a high level of vibration arising from single cylinder engine during field operations. The vibration from the VCR is transmitted from handle to hands, arms and shoulders. The detrimental effect of the prolonged exposure to hand-transmitted vibration on the operators has been known for a long time. In the present study, experiments were conducted to assess the vibration extent in VCR for two operational conditions i.e. transportation on bitumen road and wheat harvesting operation. The vibrations were measured at engine speed 2200 and 2800 rpm. In this study it was found that the vibration magnitudes decreased with increase in engine speed from 2200 to 2800 rpm in both operational conditions. The highest vibration values were observed in x-direction. The maximum frequency-weighted vibration acceleration (rms) in x-direction was 18.76 and 22.8 ms-2 in transportation and wheat harvesting. One third octave band frequency spectra were also obtained. The peak acceleration appeared around 50 Hz for both transportation and wheat harvesting at engine speed 2200 and 2800 rpm. The average 8 hour exposure time for occurrence of white finger syndrome was 1.16 and 0.93 years at transportation and wheat harvesting operation.
