Onion detopping machine - an emerging horticultural enterprising

Onion is the one of the important vegetable crops cultivated in India. Multiplier type onion is one among the three major types of onions. Tamil Nadu accounts for five per cent of country’s area under onion and more than 70 per cent of the area is cultivated by small onion (Allium cepa var. aggregatum). Around 90 per cent of country’s multiplier onion is produced from Tamil Nadu. Detopping is one of the steps in the on-farm processing carried out after harvest. Presently this is done manually by farm women. Individual onions are picked and detopping is done by using sickle. This operation is time consuming and highly drudgery in nature. An Onion detopping machine to remove the foliage after harvest was designed and developed in the present study. This machine has a capacity of 370 kg/h against 30 kg/h manual practice and works with an efficiency of 98%. The unique design of the detopper is that it is suitable for all sizes of onions. Also, the cluster is intact after detopping, which is very important requirement. This multiplier type onion is grown in Nagamangala (Tk), Mandya (Dt.) of Karnataka State. Two farmers of this area have installed this machine and running a successful enterprising. Cost involved in using this machine is Rs. 200 per quintal against Rs. 500 per quintal by manual detopping. Owing to the higher capacity by mechanization, the farmers will be able to process the higher volume of produce within a short span of time. Hence, this will facilitate the farmers to sell the produce, get good market price and earn higher returns

Light trap, an effective component of integrated management of Tuta absoluta(Lepidoptera : Gelechiidae) on Tomato

The effectiveness of mass trapping the moths of Tuta absoluta was evaluated using light traps in tomato polyhouse at ICAR-Indian Institute of Horticultural Research, Bengaluru during March - June, 2018. Various colours of light sources were evaluated for their efficacy in attracting the moths. Of different coloured light sources evaluated, yellow and white (bluish) were found relatively effective for attraction of the moths. The efficacy of mass trapping was further evaluated and incandescent yellow bulb of 60 W was found most efficient in attracting both sexes of Tuta moths. Thus light traps can be an effective tool for IPM of this pest on tomato, under polyhouse conditions

Annular pancreas - literature

Abstract Introduction: Annular pancreas is a very rare adulthood. Here we present a rare case of Annular pancreas which presented in neonatal period. The child presented with bilious vomiting and the AXR revealed classical Double bubble appea did Kimura's diamond shaped Duoden

Knowledge, Awareness, Attitude And Purchasing Decision Making Behaviour Among Women Towards Gold Jewellery In Vellore City – An Assessment

Society is diversified in all aspects. We see this among consumers, marketers, producers and even among consumer behavior from theoretical aspects. A decade has elapsed since the onset of the millennium and there have been many changes occurring across global economics which has had its repercussions on the Indian economy. Since the time of the liberalization of our economy Indian market has been greatly influenced by the global economy and global markets. From prehistoric times people all over the world have exposed special interest in gold jewels either for ownership or prestige or status. Passion for jewels is renowned. It is reflected in numerous customary occasions where it is not only measured promising but mandatory to gift Jewels crafted in gold. The bride’s trousseau is incomplete without the gold Jewels. It is evident that people demand for gold even though the pricesarehigh,expectingforthefuture increase. This is due to the expectation of more returns at the time of resale. This research study helps to comprehend the preferences of women towards gold Jewels; awareness about branded jewellery; and which factor mainly influenced the women to buy gold Jewels. This study also helps jewellery marketers to explore the strategies to be adopted for uplifting the market to plan for launching new brands and suggests ways to stay in touch with customers. Therefore this research paper give more importance to study the knowledge, awareness, attitude and purchasing decision making behaviour among women towards Gold Jewellery in Vellore City

Mushrooms for integrated and diversified nutrition

            Mushrooms were considered as “Objects of mystery” by the primitive man, and were realized as food much before civilization. Mushrooms have been variously used in different cultures from being priced as “Food of Gods” in the Roman culture to tools of psychological sedation for the Mexican warriors. Most of the edible mushrooms are saprophytic growing on decomposed organic plant matter. Mushrooms play varied and important roles in human nutrition and health. They are unique nutrition dense vegetables with quality high protein, very low fat, zero cholesterol, low carbohydrates, low glycemic index, high fiber, good cardiac friendly sodium to potassium ratio and some unique bioactive compounds like ergothioneine and polysaccharides. These unique nutritive properties of mushrooms make them a recommended food for diabetics, body weight management, hypertension and cardiac well-being. The concept of selenium rich mushrooms for slowing down the progress of AIDS has been gaining importance in the recent years. Apart from being a healthy vegetable, the unique lignocellulosic waste-based production system of mushrooms makes them the most ecofriendly zero waste green technology with immense environmental benefits (Gupta et al., 2004, Jain et al., 2014 and & Pandey et al., 2014). Despite many environmental and nutritional benefits; mushrooms yet have not become a part of daily nutrition in the Indian diet and the per capita consumption still remains very low at 70 grams per annum. There is a need to educate and enhance the awareness among the people about the nutritional and health potential of mushrooms. There is also the need to draw the attention towards integrating mushroom technology in successful agro-residue management programs, livelihood programs, national nutrition programs and women empowerment and rural development schemes which ultimately culminate in providing better daily nutrition

Development and Performance of Power-Operated Garlic Bulb Breaker

A power-operated garlic bulb breaker to separate cloves from whole-garlic-bulbs was developed, its operational parameters optimized and its performance evaluated. The garlic bulb breaker consisted of a feeding chute, two-stage padded rubber rollers, a blower, outlets for cloves and skins, a main frame, power and power transmission system. The garlic bulb breaker was evaluated using three types of rubber padding material viz., plain type, button type and corrugated type, with four levels of clearance between rubber rollers viz., 15, 18, 21 and 24mm, three levels of peripheral speed, viz., 259.2, 302.4 and 345.6 m/min. The machine displayed performance parameters in terms of breaking efficiency at 96%, per cent clumps of cloves 1.22, per cent clove damage 1.7, per cent clove loss 1.08, and bulb-breaking capacity of 780kg/h using corrugated padding material fitted at 18mm clearance and 259.4m/min peripheral speed. Operating cost of the machine was Rs. 0.06/kg against Rs. 2.25/kg incurred with manual clove separation of cloves

Constraints in dry chilli cultivation practices and mechanization of harvesting in Southern India

Dry chilli production in India condition faces many challenges apart from adverse weather conditions, labor-intensive production practices and higher overall production costs are limiting profitable dry chilli cultivation. Therefore, a study was carried to know the key constraints in current chilli production practices in eight major production districts of three states. A systematic research and development approach is essential to know the range of constraints and farmers preferences over technological options for field operations. The harvesting operation alone demands 43% of labour 360.5 man-days/ha. So, red chilli harvesting mechanization is a definite immediate requirement to reduce labour input. Farmers (47%) prefer small size self-propelled chilli harvester over tractor operated equipment. In the production catchments, farmer also inferred to change the cultivation practices to mechanize chilli production operations, but 18% of farmers hesitant to adopt one-timeharvesting chilli varieties due to suspicion about the yield potentials

Design and Evaluation of Portable Manually Operated Spawn Spreading Machine for Oyster Mushroom (Pleurotus florida) Cultivation

Oyster mushroom (Pleurotus florida) is gaining demand owing to its benefits and taste. But, the prevailing manual method of cultivation is compromised with limited spawn spreading capacity and high chance of contamination which could be overcome by use of a spawn spreading machine. Currently no such machine is available which has prompted us to develop the same. The benefaction of the developed machine to the farmers is lightweight, portable, autoclavable, affordable, uncomplicated design, unskilled person can operate and minimize contamination chance that leads to increase in yield of mushroom. It constitutes the main frame, truncated conical hopper and ball valve metering mechanism. The machine evaluated in the lab shown that a highest spawn spreading capacity of 288 bags/h as compared to manual spreading operation of 110 bags/h for rice straw substrate at spawning rate of 50 g. In this context, the result clearly indicate that, the spawn spreading machine is very cost effective, save time and reduce labour requirement as compared to manual operation

Not Available

Not AvailableQuality and healthy seedling production is very important for successful vegetable cultivation. Recent days hybrid vegetable seedlings are raised in protrays under protected cultivation to ensure quality seedling production. Vegetable nursery raising is an upcoming successful entrepreneurship area. Growing media filled protrays are dibbled and seeded manually. This process is very tedious, labour intensive, time consuming and drudgery. Keeping this in view, an automatic protray conveying, dibbling and seeding system was designed and developed. The design and construction of automatic protray conveying and dibbling system is presented is this paper. The machine was designed suitable for 98 protray cell (Protray dimension : 530 x 275 mm and protray cavity matrix: 14 x 7 )(lengthwise x widthwise) which is widely used for vegetable nursery raising. This system consisted of protray conveyor and indexing system, dibbling unit, penumatic systems, electronic controls and programmable logic controller (PLC). The main conveyor shaft was driven by a stepper motor and the stepper motor was driven by a micro-stepping drive with 3200 pulse/rev configuration. Each protray was detected by a sensor and indexed by determined distance pre-programed of PLC. The function of dibbling unit was to make 10 mm dia. x 10 mm deep depressions at the center of the each cell of the growing media filled protray. The dibbling unit was a set of conically shaped tubular pegs arranged in a common bar. The stroke of the operation was 30 mm and indenting was 10 mm deep. Proximity sensor of PNP type was used for the dead end limits of all motions and conveyor index. The sensors used were dibbling station home sensor, dibbling station lower sensor, main conveyor indexing sensor and tray detection sensor. The entire cycle was controlled by a logic programme and this synchronized the conveyor motion (position/inching) with the dibbling system. This machine was able to index the growing media protrays at the predetermined distance of 38.3 mm and to make uniform depth cavities. The dibbling capacity was found to be 300 protrays/hDepartment of Science and Technology, Govt. of India, New Delh