Economic Feasibility of Vegetable Production under Polyhouse:A Case Study of Capsicum and Tomato

Polyhouse cultivation of vegetables is emerging as a specialized production technology to overcome biotic and abiotic stresses and to break the seasonal barrier to production. It also ensures round the year production of highvalue vegetables, like capsicum, especially, during off-season. Cost is the major issue in sustaining this technology. The present study examined the economic viability of production of capsicum and tomato in a naturally ventilated polyhouse of medium cost category with drip irrigation system. Data were generated by cost accounting method for estimating the feasibility of production and was analyzed by using project evaluation methods, like Pay Back Period (PBP), Benefit Cost Ratio (BCR), Net Present Value (NPV) and Internal Rate of Return (IRR). Cultivation of capsicum in a polyhouse was found to be highly feasible as reflected in higher values of NPV (Rs.3,23,145/500 m2), BCR (1.80) and IRR (53.7%) with payback period of less than two years. Breakeven price for capsicum production in a polyhouse (Rs.11.80/kg) was lesser than average wholesale price. Production of tomato in a polyhouse was found not feasible, as the breakeven price was more than the average market price and all the project appraisal parameters indicated that it was not feasible. Only at about 48% premium price over the prevailing market price or reduction of cost of polyhouse structure by 60% from Rs.400 to Rs.160 /m2, could make the tomato production viable in a poly house

In-Situ absolute phase detection of a microwave field via incoherent fluorescence

Measuring the amplitude and the absolute phase of a monochromatic microwave field at a specific point of space and time has many potential applications, including precise qubit rotations and wavelength quantum teleportation. Here we show how such a measurement can indeed be made using resonant atomic probes, via detection of incoherent fluorescence induced by a laser beam. This measurement is possible due to self-interference effects between the positive and negative frequency components of the field. In effect, the small cluster of atoms here act as a highly localized pick-up coil, and the fluorescence channel acts as a transmission line.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figure

Annihilation of vortex dipoles in an Oblate Bose-Einstein Condensate

We theoretically explore the annihilation of vortex dipoles, generated when an obstacle moves through an oblate Bose-Einstein condensate, and examine the energetics of the annihilation event. We show that the gray soliton, which results from the vortex dipole annihilation, is lower in energy than the vortex dipole. We also investigate the annihilation events numerically and observe that the annihilation occurs only when the vortex dipole overtakes the obstacle and comes closer than the coherence length. Furthermore, we find that the noise reduces the probability of annihilation events. This may explain the lack of annihilation events in experimental realizations.Comment: 8 pages and 9 figure

Influence of Various Sources and Levels of Fertilizer Applied through Fertigation on Hybrid Watermelon Grown in Rabi-Summer

A field experiment was conducted at Bangalore during 2006-2008 to study the effect of fertigation on growth and yield of rabi-summer grown watermelon. Seven treatments comprising varying rates and sources of fertilizers were applied. Application of water soluble fertilizer @ 70:70:70kg N:P2O5:K2O per hectare through fertigation gave significantly higher vine length, number of branches per plant and leaf area index. In general, fertigation treatments recorded higher values for number of fruits per plant, fruit weight and total soluble solids than conventional soilapplication of fertilizers. All the fertigation treatments recorded higher average marketable watermelon yield over conventional soil-application of fertilizers amounting to 7.22 to 26.4% increase. Among fertigation treatments, though recommended dose of fertilizer applied as water soluble fertilizer resulted in highest marketable-fruit yield, highest net income (Rs. 229775) and B:C ratio (3.03) was obtained in treatment with 70% of recommended dose of NPK using conventional fertilizers supplied through fertigation

Gaussian approximation for finitely extensible bead-spring chains with hydrodynamic interaction

The Gaussian Approximation, proposed originally by Ottinger [J. Chem. Phys., 90 (1) : 463-473, 1989] to account for the influence of fluctuations in hydrodynamic interactions in Rouse chains, is adapted here to derive a new mean-field approximation for the FENE spring force. This "FENE-PG" force law approximately accounts for spring-force fluctuations, which are neglected in the widely used FENE-P approximation. The Gaussian Approximation for hydrodynamic interactions is combined with the FENE-P and FENE-PG spring force approximations to obtain approximate models for finitely-extensible bead-spring chains with hydrodynamic interactions. The closed set of ODE's governing the evolution of the second-moments of the configurational probability distribution in the approximate models are used to generate predictions of rheological properties in steady and unsteady shear and uniaxial extensional flows, which are found to be in good agreement with the exact results obtained with Brownian dynamics simulations. In particular, predictions of coil-stretch hysteresis are in quantitative agreement with simulations' results. Additional simplifying diagonalization-of-normal-modes assumptions are found to lead to considerable savings in computation time, without significant loss in accuracy.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures, 2 tables, 75 numbered equations, 1 appendix with 10 numbered equations Submitted to J. Chem. Phys. on 6 February 200