eChapters

Aim

To determine the contours by cross-section method using dumpy level.

Materials required

Dumpy level

Leveling staff

Measuring tape

Wooden pegs/chain pins

Field book

Aim

To determine the contours by grid method using dumpy level.

Materials required

Dumpy level

Leveling staff

Measuring tape

Wooden pegs/chain pins

Field book

Aim

To determine the contours by radial line method using dumpy level.

Materials required

Dumpy level
Leveling staff
Measuring tape
Wooden pegs/chain pins
Field book

Description

Bucket elevator is one of the equipments used in the material handling to convey the material vertically. The lab model bucket elevator (Fig.34.1) consists of number of buckets/cups arranged to an endless flat belt. The belt with cups run vertically and cups are placed at a particular interval in the belt. The belt is wrapped over two pulleys, one at the top is called head pulley which receives power from an electrical motor 0.5 hp through suitable power concentration and rotates at required rpm. The belts, cups and pulleys are mounted on a steel frame. The grain from the hopper is reaches to the bottom pulley. The bucket is filled with grains during upward movement and is discharged at the top due to the centrifugal force. An outlet is provided at the top to collect the discharge grain. The capacity depends on the bucket size and seed of operation. For proper discharge of the material, the weight of the material in each cup should be equal to the centrifugal force created due to rotation.

Description

Screw conveyor is one of the equipment used in material handling to convey the material horizontally. The screw conveyor consists of screw blade, screw shaft, coupling, tubular trough, cover, inlet and outlet gates, bearings and drive mechanism. A shaft with spiral screw revolves in the tubular trough. The screw shaft is supported by end and hanger bearings. The rotation of screw pushes the grain along the trough. The pitch of a stranded screw which is the distance from the center of one thread to the center of the next thread is equal to its diameter

Aim

To study the determination of drying rate of agricultural products

Problem

In a drying experiment on paddy at an air temperature of 60ºC, the following data were obtained. Prepare a drying rate curve for the experiment. Initial weight of the sample is 1250 gm and initial moisture content is 35% (d.b).

Electrical conductivity of the soil is the quantity of electricity in coulombs that passes per second per cm3 of the soil solution under an applied potential difference of 1 volt. It is written as EC in abbreviated form and is expressed in millimohs cm-1 or dS m-1 (deciSiemen m-1). Current flows in the soil solution due to presence of soluble salts like Cl- , SO2- 4 and NO3 - of Na+, K+ Ca++ and Mg++. These salts fully dissociate in water to their constituent cations and anions and the current is carried by those cations anions in the soil solution.

Procedure

• Take 1 g soil in a 50 ml beaker

• Add 25 ml 1M KCL solution 

Reagents

• Buffer solution : Dissolve 67.5 g of Ammo. Chloride in 200 ml distilled water. Add 570 ml Ammonium solution. The volume make up to 1 ltr.

• EBT : 0.2 g in 25 ml methanol.

The lime requirement (LR) of an acid soil is the amount of lime needed to neutralize the acidity from an initial condition to some target soil pH, like 7.0. Different methods are used to calculate a LR for specific soils. Lime requirement tests will always recommend adding enough lime to neutralize all the acidity associated with soil pH, much of the salt-replaceable acidity, and some of the residual acidity.

Aim : To determine the Magnesium in plant sample.

Theory

This type of moisture measurement is called brown-duvel fractional distillation method. The method is recognized as an official method for determination of moisture content. In this method, directly measures the volume of moisture in cubic centimeter. This apparatus consists of flask, burner, thermometer, condenser, graduated cylinder. This apparatus consists of flask in which grain sample is boiled with mineral oil.

Theory

Indirect methods are based on the measurement of electrical properties of the grain that depends upon moisture content. There are two indirect methods namely (i) electrical resistance and (ii) dielectric methods are used. The electrical conductivity or resistance of a product measures its moisture content at a given compaction and temperature. The electrical resistance is depends on its moisture content, degree of compaction, grain temperature and impurities present in the sample. The universal digital moisture meter measures the electrical resistance of the grain at a given compaction. Universal moisture meter gives fairly accurate readings of moisture content on wet basis. In dielectric method, grain moisture content can be measured with the help of dielectric properties of the grains.

Theory

The amount of moisture in a product is given on the basis of the weight of water present in the product and is usually expressed in percent. Moisture content is designated by (i) wet basis (wb) and (ii) Dry basis (db). The moisture content on dry basis is more simple to use in calculation as the quantity of moisture present at any time is directly proportional to the moisture content on dry basis.

The statement is still valid as long as it is understood that in an aqueous solution the substances involved are subject to dissociation, which changes the ionization state of the substances. 

Digestion Mixure : This is a mixture of two salt. That is potassium sulfate and cupper sulfate with 9:1 ratio (90 g Potassium sulfate + 10 g Copper sulphate).

The de    e plant growth, biomass composition, and energy potential.
(a) Nitrogen Determination by Kjeldahl Method
Theory
The Kjeldahl method is one of the most reliable and widely accepted procedures for determining organic nitrogen in biomass samples. It involves the conversion of nitrogen compounds into ammonium sulfate through digestion with concentrated sulfuric acid and a catalyst. The resulting ammonia is then distilled and quantified by titration. This method measures total nitrogen, excluding nitrate and nitrite forms, and is used extensively in plant, feed, and biomass analysis.
The process involves three major steps:
Digestion
Organic nitrogen in the sample is converted to ammonium sulfate by boiling with concentrated sulfuric acid and a catalyst mixture (usually potassium sulfate and copper sulfate) Organic-N+H2SO4?(NH4)2SO4+CO2+H2O
Distillation
The digested sample is made alkaline with sodium hydroxide, releasing ammonia gas, which is distilled and absorbed in a known volume of standard acid.

In the detection of soil organic carbon a known weight of soil is heated with an excess volume of standard K2 Cr2 O7 in the presence of Con. H2 SO4 . The soil is slowly digested at the low temperature by the heat of dilution of H2 SO4 and the organic carbon in the soil is thus oxidized to CO2 . The highest temperature attained by the heat of dilution reaction produced with the addition of Con. H2 SO4 is approximately 12o C which is sufficient to oxidize the active forms of the soil organic carbon but not the more inert forms of carbon that may be present.

100 ppm ‘P’ : By dissolving oven dry KH2 PO4 salt. Take 0.4393 gm of KH2 PO4 and volume to 1 ltr that gives 100 ppm ‘P’.

Theory

Porosity is a physical property characterizing the texture and the quality of dry and intermediate moisture foods. Porosity means inter-granular space. It is the measure of void space between the materials. Porosity may be defined as the percentage of volume of inter-grain space to the total volume of grain bulk. Porosity depends on size, shape, dimension, and roughness of grain surface.

The porosity of an unconsolidated agricultural material can either be determined experimentally using the porosity tank method or theoretically from bulk and true densities of the material. Porosity can be determined from the difference between bulk volume of a porous material and its volume after destruction of all voids by compression. Porosity determination requires the knowledge of the total or apparent volume, and the void volume included in the material matrix; their difference is also known as the particle volume.

Take 5 ml/2.5 ml aliquot in a 25 ml volumetric flask.

Determination of size of the food materials

Size is an important physical attribute of foods used in screening solids to separate foreign materials, grading of fruits and vegetables, and evaluating the quality of food materials. Various types of cleaning, grading and separation equipment are designed on the basis of size. The size and shape of the grains are used to determine the size of screen openings, angle of inclination, vibration amplitude and frequency of screen in designing an air screen grain cleaner and conveying characteristics of the solid materials.

Determination of soil texture mainly depends on the complete dispersion of soil aggregates into their individual primary particles without triturating the particles themselves, accurate fractionation of the sample into various separates, sedimentation of different particles in the viscous medium as well as measurement of individual particle by the hydrometer.

Theory

The specific gravity is defined as the unit weight of the product mass divided by the unit weight of distilled water at 4°C. The unit density is obtained by measuring the volume and weight of a unit product. Sometimes it is required to compare the density of the product to the density of water. This comparison is in the form of ratio and is termed as the specific gravity.

Specific gravity also known as relative density is the ratio of density of a substance to the density of a standard substance at the same temperature and pressure. For solids and liquids the standard substance is water while for gasses it is air. The specific gravity of food material play an important role in design of storage bins, conveying equipments, separation equipments, etc. The specific gravity is frequently used to solve the various phase relationships, including void ratio, porosity and degree of saturation together with the moisture content and unit weight. It is also used in calculations associated with the grain size analysis, consolidation and compaction. Pycnometer method, which is a standardized vessel for determining specific gravity. It involves a standard container of accurately defined volume used to determine the specific gravity of solids and liquids.

Theory

Specific heat is defined as the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of one kg of the material by one degree at constant pressure without a change in state. With food materials, specific heat is a function of different components of a food, moisture content, temperature, and pressure. Specific heat is an important parameter in thermal analysis of food processing and equipment used in heating or cooling of foods. The numerical values of specific heat of the food materials are used in designing food processes and processing equipment. It can be used to calculate the heat load imposed on the refrigeration equipment by the freezing of foods. An apparent specific heat is used in freezing or thawing and in most food processing applications.

The specific heat of a food increases as the product moisture content increases. In unfrozen foods, specific heat capacity is relatively constant with respect to temperature. However, for frozen foods, there is a large decrease in specific heat capacity as the temperature decreases. The specific heat of a material can be determined experimentally by static (adiabatic) calorimetry or differential scanning calorimetry. It can be also predicted quite accurately with the help of a number of empirical equations. The equations are empirical expressions, obtained by fitting experimental data into mathematical models. The mathematical models are based on one or more constituents of the food. Since water is a major component of many foods, a number of models are expressed as a function of water content.

6.25 HNO3 (for 2 ltr) : Take 181 ml of conc HNO3 and diluted to 2 ltr in a volumetric flask.

Aim

To determine the tapped bulk density and flowability of the food powder.

Materials required

Raw material (powder)

Measuring cylinder

Electronic weighing balance

Tapped bulk density of the powder

Tapped bulk density is measured for powdery samples. The volume is measured after tapping the powdery material so that the product is adjusted to inter-granular spaces, but it cannot eliminate all the inter-granular spaces. The tapped density is an increased bulk density attained after mechanically tapping a container containing the powder sample.

Theory

Texture testing is a well-established technique for evaluating the mechanical properties of raw materials, food structure, pre- and post- harvest quality control checks. The texture testing has many applications across wide range of foods including cereals, fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, fish, baked foods, confectionaries, snacks, dairy, gelatins, pasta, etc. Food texture analysis of foods can highlight the quality improvement throughout the supply chain. At research and development stage, new or alternative ingredients can be compared with existing ingredients.

Texture profile parameters

The texture profile parameters including hardness, firmness, crispiness, rupture strength springiness, chewiness, cohesiveness, gumminess, gel strength, adhesiveness, consistency, crunchiness, elasticity, extensibility, fracturability, stiffness, stringiness, toughness, work to cut, penetrate and shear can be measured by the mechanical food texture analyzer.

Aim

To determine the reduced level of various points

To find out difference of elevations of two points

Materials required

Dumpy level

Levelling staff

Field capacity may be defined as the amount of water held in soil after excess water has drained away and the rate of downward movement of water was materially decreased which usually taken place within two to three days after heavy rain or irrigation. In this condition water was moved out of the macropores and air has moved into take its place. 

Infiltration is the entry of a fluid from one medium into another. Soil water plays an important role in nature. The entry of rain or irrigation water into soil is called infiltration. Infiltration rate is defined as the amount of water entering into a soil per unit area per unit time under one atmospheric pressure. The infiltration rate depends upon initial moisture content of soil, condition of soil surface and permeability of various layers.

The maximum water holding capacity is the amount of water, expressed as percentage on oven dry basis held by a soil when it is completely saturated with water. At this moisture content, all the pore spaces are completely filled with water.

Aim

To determine the thermal conductivity of the agricultural materials probe method.

Materials required

Thermal conductivity probe

Stainless-steel sample container

Grain or powder sample

Graph sheet

Power source

Theory

The volume of food material play an important role in design of storage bins, conveying equipments, separation equipments, etc. Volume of larger products such as fruits and root crops can be determined using the platform scale or water displacement method.

Aim

To determine the water solubility and absorption index of given food powder.

Materials required

Digital centrifuge machine

Graduated measuring cylinder

Beaker and distilled water

Primary particles tend to adhere under natural condition so as to form secondary unit called aggregates. It is very difficult to determine the diameter of the individual aggregated particle. So the mean weight diameter is calculated as a single value constant, which indicate the wetted average value for a group of aggregates.

Soil texture is the relative proportion of sand, silt and clay in soil by weight. As per the classification of the inorganic soil particle by the International Society of Soil Science, diameters of the sand, silt and clay particles vary from 2 to 0.02 mm, 0.02 to 0.002 mm and less than 0.002 mm, respectively. There are 3 broad textural groups i.e sand, loam and clay and each broad textural group is subdivided into different textural classes depending upon the proportion of sand, silt and clay.

1. Introduction

With the advent of globalization and subsequent economic liberalization, the focus of Indian agriculture is shifting from “subsistence” to “commercial” mode, where farming is viewed as a “business” rather than “life-support” system of poor farmers. Enabling farmers “decision-making” capacity is a primary driver of success in the market-oriented agriculture. This “commercial focus” has brought tremendous changes in the “nature” and “mode” of extension work. On the other hand, extension work organizations in developing countries like India, are being impacted by sharp decline in public sector funding, rapid technological innovations especially in the Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), and the shift to a knowledge-based workforce. These developments created new opportunities for the extension workers to perform the information dissemination, capacity building and technology application more effectively. 

4.1 Introduction

The objective of this chapter is to design a mobile app for agricultural field automation with Blynk app. Mobile app is designed to control the water management in field as per requirement. The complete system comprises of two sections sensor node and mobile app. Sensor node comprises of Node MCU, Power supply, LCD, Relay board, soil sensor and Ultrasonic sensor. The system is designed to establish control and communication with specific agricultural field to take sensory data from soil and ultrasonic level sensor and control the PUMP IN motor and PUMP OUT motor with the help of mobile app.Fig.4.1 shows a block diagram for a system to control specific agricultural field with mobile app and IoT modem.

Introduction

The globally growing demand for water has ushered the need for its efficient and judicial utilizations in all fields, and agriculture in particular being a single largest consumer of water. The majority of irrigation projects in India perform at a very low efficiency, which calls for application of efficient water management technologies for meeting the increasing water demands. Estimation of soil moisture or crop evapotranspiration from climatic parameters provides objective criteria for irrigation management. Methods to estimate evapotranspiration require huge climatic data, which are seldom available and not applied by common crop growers. Determining crop water requirement through soil moisture measurement at several locations is time consuming, destructive exercise, and may not give proper assessment of crop water need. The plant based indicator approach considers the plant water status for scheduling irrigation. This might be considered as the ideal criterion because the plant water is a good integrator of the soil, water and climatic parameters.

2.1 Introduction

Greenhouses are used mainly for cultivating vegetables and fruits during the off-season to provide favorable growing conditions. Proper management of the greenhouse structure is necessary to create these off-seasonal favorable conditions for plants. Factors like site selection, location, atmospheric conditions, cropping pattern, and structure of the greenhouse are considered during the development of a greenhouse. The National Committee on the use of Plastics in Agriculture (NCPA-1982) suggests conducting site-specific greenhouse technology trials before implementation across the nation.

5.1 Introduction

The chapter describes the development of local web server on the laptop, to control the actuator from the server. Web server is used as remote control for the system. The system is designed to control water pump with respect to the soil sensor values. It comprises of NodeMCU, soil sensor, LCD, two relay boards for pump in and out the water from field.

Abstract

There are enormous food processing industries comprising of grains and oilseeds milling, fruits and vegetables processing, spice grinding and other food processing units in India. Also, there are many seed processing companies in the country, which are engaged in the processing and production of good quality seeds of different crops besides National Seeds Corporation and State Seed Corporations. All industries are using different type of machinery and equipment like cleaner, grader, expeller, milling machines, polishers, dehusking machines, size reduction equipment, different type of grinders, separators, treatment machinery, mixers, pulverizes etc. Besides this equipment, material-handling equipment like conveyor (belt, chain or screw type), elevators, holding bins and other handling equipment are also frequently used in the processing plants. To meet the above requirement many firms are also involved in the manufacturing of these equipment and machinery. Since, most of the seed processing equipment, dhal milling plants, material handling equipment are manufactured by the unorganized sector and hence equipment and machinery fabricated by them are not of very good quality. However, Bureau of Indian Standards has formulated the codes of manufacturing for these equipment and machinery. Seed processing equipment manufactured in India are generally copy of imported processing equipment. The manufacturers do not use materials of good quality. Framework of the machines is very poor. These machines are not also tested for their efficiency, 

6.1. Etawah Pilot Project (1948)

Started in 1948 by Mr. Albert Mayer of USA at Etawah district in UP

Funded by the Government of UP.

6.1.1. Objectives

To know the degree of productive and social improvements, through self confidence and cooperatives

To find how quickly these results could be attained

To know whether the results remain permanent even after the special pressure is withdrawn

To assess how far the results were reproductive in other places.

7.1. Sriniketan Project (1914)

Shri Rabindra Nath Tagore in 1914 established a rural reconstruction institute at Sriniketan involving youth from a group of 8 villages.

Maintained a demonstration farm, a dairy and poultry unit, an outdoor clinic, a department of cottage industries and a village school.

Villages were expected to approach these agencies through village workers who lived in villages to obtain solution of their more pressing problems.

Scheme of land development and tree plantation were given due importance.

Experiment on paddy, sugarcane and cotton were undertaken.

Introduction

Oils and fats are utilized both for their food applications as well as for industrial purpose. As a food product, oils and fats are consumed in a variety of forms such as shortening, ghee, butter, margarine, cooking oil, salad oil, etc. Other uses include their usage in the form of lubricants, greases, soaps, cosmetics, paints as well as animal feed and biofuels. Among the Asian countries, Indonesia leads as the prime producer with more than fifty percent of the total palm oil production in the world. As a second-best producer of oils and fats, China was the major manufacturer of rapeseed as well as soybean oil in year of 2018. In general, Asian countries contributed to more than fifty percent of the total fat and oil manufacturing in the world in 2018 (Kushairi et al., 2018). Even though fats and oils are primarily utilized for food applications, there has been an increased interest in their industrial utility for the manufacture of biofuels. Fats manufactured from various animal sources like tallow or lard also contribute to a considerable quantity and compete with vegetable oils for the production of biofuels.

The resources for producing oils and fats are diverse depending on their end use, yet they are obtained from two major sources: animal sources and plant sources. Oils and fats are used as starting materials for the preparation of shortenings, margarines, and other tailored products that further act as functional ingredients in food products prepared by food processors, restaurants, and in home. They have been used for food and other variety of applications since the prehistoric times, due to their easy availability. For example, fatty tissues from animals liberate free-floating fats on being boiled, whereas oil can be pressed out from oil fruits and oilseeds.

The role of dietary oils and fats in human nutrition is also one of the important areas of interest. Over the time, oil and fat industry has provided significant contributions toward nutritional improvement of various products. With the growing concern linked between cardiovascular diseases and consumption of oil and fat products, low-calorie variants of different foods, free or low in cholesterol are also available now. Excessive fat consumption among the populations of developed countries and consequences of obesity has led to the development of reduced-fat and very-low-fat variants of foods.

8.1 Introduction to Dictionary in Python

A dictionary is a collection which is unordered changeable and index. In python dictionaries are written within curly brackets, and they have keys and values. Means the dictionary contains two things first is the key and the second is the value.

8.1.1 Create and Print a Dictionary

Example

dict1={‘brand’:‘Suzuki’,‘model’:‘dzire’,‘year’:2020}

print(dict1)

Accessing items: you can access the items of a dictionary by referring to its key name, inside square brackets.

Example

Accessing items: there is also a method called get() for the same task.

dict1={‘brand’:‘Suzuki’,‘model’:‘dzire’,‘year’:2020}

print(dict1)

y=dict1.get(?model”)

print(y)

Abstract

The electromagnetic processing instruments such as microwave is very commonly used at house hold level, hence understanding the behavior of food as well as factors affecting its dielectric properties becomes important. Dielectric properties (DEP) play an important in electromagnetic processing of food products and mainly depend upon the moisture content, physical properties, composition, temperature and power applied. Different methods have been used to determine the DEP of food material including parallel plate, coaxial probe, resonance cavity, transmission line and free space method. The selection of these methods is again based on several factors such as type of materials, accuracy of measurement, the scope of the research, frequency range, availability of equipments and resources. Present study thus summarizes the importance of DEP of food, influencing factors and the different measurement techniques.

3a. Sources and problems of agricultural wastes
3b. Waste Reduction
3c. Waste Treatment
3d. Waste Disposal
3e. Clean Technology

Different Kinds of Agricultural Wastes
Table 1: Common Hazardous Wastes: Community Source