Quantifying Economic Losses due to Milk Fever in Dairy Farms

Milk fever, a metabolic disease, affects dairy animals usually within one or two days after calving, resulting in a huge reduction in milk production and thus becomes economically most important. This study, conducted in five milkshed districts of Tamil Nadu, has estimated the economic losses arising from milk fever, based on the data collected from a random sample of 557 milk fever affected bovines (516 cows and 41 she buffaloes) during 2005-08. For assessing economic losses caused by milk fever, cost of medicines, veterinarian’s fee, cost of additional labour utilized, loss due to reduction in milk output, cost of animals dead and culled have been considered. The prevalence of milk fever has been found 13.67 per cent in cows and 11.99 per cent in buffaloes across the study districts. The total loss has been found as Rs 1,068 per affected cow and Rs 665 per buffalo. Taking into account the observed prevalence of milk fever, the population of milch cows and buffaloes and the per animal loss due to milk fever has been estimated to be of Rs 40.62 crore in the state, which is a substantial damage to the dairy farming community. Some suggestions for prevention and management of milk fever have been given in the study.Agricultural and Food Policy,

Machine vision based system for flower counting in strawberry plants

Background: For strawberry production, accurate yield prediction is very important to help growers increase their profit by efficiently managing their harvesting operation and setting their contracts with buyers. Strawberry plants produce flowers and fruits simultaneously throughout the season. Strawberry flowers are white in color with a yellow pollen at the center, which later becomes a fruit. Strawberry yield can be estimated by counting the number of flowers in a field in advance of harvesting. The objective of this project is to count the number of flowers using image processing techniques, create a map of flower counts using gee-tagging and provide farmers with an estimate of the yield in a given area. Methods: Strawberry flowers could be at different stages of maturation during imaging. We pre-process images using edge-preserving smoothing filter to remove noise without removing fine features. The next stage involves segmentation of flowers from the background. Since flowers are brighter than most other components of plants, simple thresholding with segmentation algorithm will produce candidate pixels. Then flower detection will be conducted using traditional feature engineering along with a classifier such as Histogram of Oriented Gradients, Wavelet Transform, Local Binary Patterns, and the Deep Learning based techniques. Results: Once flowers are detected, the number of flowers is counted to provide farmers with an estimate of yield and variability at different locations in the field. Discussions: One of the biggest challenges with outdoor imaging is the variable lighting conditions. We propose a camera mounted autonomous system to go over rows of strawberry plants to capture images with geo-tags. Cameras are positioned to capture images from different angles to capture occluded flowers. Conclusion: A novel image processing method for accurate strawberry yield prediction is proposed by counting the number of flowers from images for efficient crop management

Effect of ginger extract on sensory quality of spent Japanese quail meat tandoori

Spent Japanese quail (SJQ) meat was tenderized with ginger extract and utilized in the preparation of tandoori. The ginger extract level for tenderization of SJQ meat was optimized by physico-chemical and sensory analyses. The SJQ meat was treated with two levels of ginger extract and used for tandoori preparation along with two controls (broiler quail meat and spent quail meat). Japanese quail tandoori was prepared as four treatments namely CYB (Control young broiler), CSA (Control spent adult), G20 (Spent adult - ginger treatment 20%) and G40 (Spent adult - ginger treatment 40%). The aqueous ginger extract was prepared from fresh ginger rhizome (Zingiber officinale Roscoe). The SJQ was marinated in ginger extract marinade, tumbled, and placed in the chiller (4±1⁰C) for 24 hours and utilized for tandoori preparation. The cooked tandoori of all the treatments were analysed for the physico-chemical and sensory parameters. With ginger extract marination, the pH of cooked tandoori was not affected and the product yield was improved. In the organoleptic evaluation, the appearance score increased in the treatment with 20% ginger extract. The flavour score was significantly (p<0.05) higher in CYB and G20. The SJQ was significantly (p<0.05) tenderized by treatment with 20% and 40% ginger extract. CYB and G20 had significantly (p<0.01) higher scores for overall acceptability scores. It is concluded that 20% ginger extract level could effectively be used to tenderize the SJQ meat for the preparation of tandoori without affecting the physico-chemical and sensory properties

Quantifying Economic Losses due to Milk Fever in Dairy Farms

Milk fever, a metabolic disease, affects dairy animals usually within one or two days after calving, resulting in a huge reduction in milk production and thus becomes economically most important. This study, conducted in five milkshed districts of Tamil Nadu, has estimated the economic losses arising from milk fever, based on the data collected from a random sample of 557 milk fever affected bovines (516 cows and 41 she buffaloes) during 2005-08. For assessing economic losses caused by milk fever, cost of medicines, veterinarian’s fee, cost of additional labour utilized, loss due to reduction in milk output, cost of animals dead and culled have been considered. The prevalence of milk fever has been found 13.67 per cent in cows and 11.99 per cent in buffaloes across the study districts. The total loss has been found as Rs 1,068 per affected cow and Rs 665 per buffalo. Taking into account the observed prevalence of milk fever, the population of milch cows and buffaloes and the per animal loss due to milk fever has been estimated to be of Rs 40.62 crore in the state, which is a substantial damage to the dairy farming community. Some suggestions for prevention and management of milk fever have been given in the study

Physico-Chemical Characteristics of Pork Sausage during Refrigerated Storage

A study to compare the effectiveness of Tapioca Starch (TS) and Potato Flour (PF) for preparation of pork sausage with 50 per cent lean and 30 per cent low value meat (Head, Heart and Tongue in the ratio of 70:15:15) was carried out. Sausages were prepared with 5 per cent level of PF and 7 per cent of TS and were subjected to physico-chemical characteristics viz., pH, shear force, TBARS and TV to study the keeping quality at refrigerated storage (4&amp;#177;10C) for 30 days. Inclusion of 30 per cent low value meat had not much effect compared to full meat sausages. The results revealed that during storage there was a highly significant (P&lt;0.01) decrease in pH, hear force, and increase in TBARS and TV with the increase in storage days in both the treatments. Sausages prepared with 5 per cent PF and 7 per cent TS were acceptable upto 25 days of refrigerated storage (4&amp;#177;10C). Sausages with potato flour had lower values of TBARS and hence considered more acceptable compared to TS incorporated sausages. [Vet. World 2009; 2(3.000): 95-97