Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University, Guntur
The Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (APAU) was established on 12th June 1964 at Hyderabad.
The University was formally inaugurated on 20th March 1965 by Late Shri. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Hon`ble Prime Minister of India. Another significant milestone was the inauguration of the building programme of the university by Late Smt. Indira Gandhi,the then Hon`ble Prime Minister of India on 23rd June 1966.
The University was renamed as Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University on 7th November 1996 in honour and memory of an outstanding parliamentarian Acharya Nayukulu Gogineni Ranga, who rendered remarkable selfless service for the cause of farmers and is regarded as an outstanding educationist, kisan leader and freedom fighter.
HISTORICAL MILESTONE
Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) was established under the name of Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (APAU) on the 12th of June 1964 through the APAU Act 1963. Later, it was renamed as Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University on the 7th of November, 1996 in honour and memory of the noted Parliamentarian and Kisan Leader, Acharya N. G. Ranga. At the verge of completion of Golden Jubilee Year of the ANGRAU, it has given birth to a new State Agricultural University namely Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University with the bifurcation of the state of Andhra Pradesh as per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014. The ANGRAU at LAM, Guntur is serving the students and the farmers of 13 districts of new State of Andhra Pradesh with renewed interest and dedication.
Genesis of ANGRAU in service of the farmers
1926: The Royal Commission emphasized the need for a strong research base for agricultural development in the country...
1949: The Radhakrishnan Commission (1949) on University Education led to the establishment of Rural Universities for the overall development of agriculture and rural life in the country...
1955: First Joint Indo-American Team studied the status and future needs of agricultural education in the country...
1960: Second Joint Indo-American Team (1960) headed by Dr. M. S. Randhawa, the then Vice-President of Indian Council of Agricultural Research recommended specifically the establishment of Farm Universities and spelt out the basic objectives of these Universities as Institutional Autonomy, inclusion of Agriculture, Veterinary / Animal Husbandry and Home Science, Integration of Teaching, Research and Extension...
1963: The Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (APAU) Act enacted...
June 12th 1964: Andhra Pradesh Agricultural University (APAU) was established at Hyderabad with Shri. O. Pulla Reddi, I.C.S. (Retired) was the first founder Vice-Chancellor of the University...
June 1964: Re-affilitation of Colleges of Agriculture and Veterinary Science, Hyderabad (estt. in 1961, affiliated to Osmania University), Agricultural College, Bapatla (estt. in 1945, affiliated to Andhra University), Sri Venkateswara Agricultural College, Tirupati and Andhra Veterinary College, Tirupati (estt. in 1961, affiliated to Sri Venkateswara University)...
20th March 1965: Formal inauguration of APAU by Late Shri. Lal Bahadur Shastri, the then Hon`ble Prime Minister of India...
1964-66: The report of the Second National Education Commission headed by Dr. D.S. Kothari, Chairman of the University Grants Commission stressed the need for establishing at least one Agricultural University in each Indian State...
23, June 1966: Inauguration of the Administrative building of the university by Late Smt. Indira Gandhi, the then Hon`ble Prime Minister of India...
July, 1966: Transfer of 41 Agricultural Research Stations, functioning under the Department of Agriculture...
May, 1967: Transfer of Four Research Stations of the Animal Husbandry Department...
7th November 1996: Renaming of University as Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University in honour and memory of an outstanding parliamentarian Acharya Nayukulu Gogineni Ranga...
15th July 2005: Establishment of Sri Venkateswara Veterinary University (SVVU) bifurcating ANGRAU by Act 18 of 2005...
26th June 2007: Establishment of Andhra Pradesh Horticultural University (APHU) bifurcating ANGRAU by the Act 30 of 2007...
2nd June 2014 As per the Andhra Pradesh Reorganization Act 2014, ANGRAU is now...
serving the students and the farmers of 13 districts of new State of Andhra Pradesh with renewed interest and dedication...
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ThesisItem Open Access ASSESMENT OF DYNAMIC CHANGES OF VEGETATION COVER ON RUNOFF USING GIS AND REMOTE SENSING(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, 2023-04-27) RAMYA SRI, Er. P.; RAVI BABU, G.The conservation of land and water resources plays a vital role for the watershed development activities leads to socio economic development of the country. In order to conserve these resources, GIS and remote sensing technologies are very useful in managing these natural resources. In the present study, Melavoi watershed in Anantapuramu district was taken for the study because till now there is no conclusion about the impact of vegetation cover on runoff and also there is no study on cross validation of structure placement in field. In view of this, the present study was conducted on the “Assessment of dynamic changes of vegetation cover on runoff using GIS and Remote Sensing (RS)” to study about runoff generation and vegetation change by estimating watershed characteristics, temporal change in vegetation in respect of appropriate location of the water harvesting structure. Various thematic maps such as elevation map, slope map, aspect map, contour map, soil map, drainag and stream order map and landuse/land cover map were developed. Considering the role of detailed information about particular location, spatial patterns were analyzed using these thematic maps. The aspect map has a total of 9 directions degree, the slope map has an occupancy of 67.70, 9.66, 4.19 and 3.26% area under 0-5, 5-10, 10-15 and 15-30% slope range of watershed area respectively and the watershed was having 6th order basin whose catchment area was 88.30 sq. km. The GIS analysis of the land use was performed for the years 2012 and 2018. As the vegetation varies from one climatic zone to another, vegetation cover maps for the period of six years were produced i.e., 1993, 2000, 2005, 2011, 2015 and 2020 for both kharif and rabi ix seasons. The land use in the year 2012 and 2018 showed that, 16.30, 3.28, 42.39, 0.4 and 37.55%, 23.88, 7.63, 41.53, 0.563 and 26.39% area of the watershed were under agricultural land, built up, wastelands, waterbodies and others respectively. Using the satellite images, NDVI maps were produced and the change in the vegetation cover was detected using the image differencing technique for the years 1993 and 2000, 2000 and 2005, 2005 and 2011, 2011 and 2015, 2015 and 2020. In the resulting image, the vegetation was classified into three classes such as old vegetation, new vegetation high density and new vegetation low density. For kharif and rabi season, the highest per cent change in high density new vegetation was observed during 2000-2005 and 1993-2000, 2000-2005. For the runoff estimation using SCS-CN method, the rainfall, hydrologic soil group map, potential maximum retention layers, runoff coefficient map were given as input. Runoff potential maps for the years of 2012 and 2018 were generated. The Melavoi watershed falls under ‘low’ and ‘very low’ runoff coefficient classes and an area of 0.1% and 0.2% falls under ‘high’ and ‘moderate’ runoff coefficient. For all the remaining years, the runoff was estimated from software developed at APSAC. As the vegetation on the runoff plays a critical role, the temporal changes in vegetation for the past 20 years were observed. With the watershed developmental activities, from the year 2011 to 2020, the vegetation follows increasing and decreasing trend. The lowest vegetation was recorded in the year 2011. This is matching with low rainfall and high temperatures in rabi season, recorded very low vegetation among all years of study. There was a decrease in vegetation in the years 2017 and 2018 compared to 2016 and 2019. In the year 2020, the vegetation area again decreased due to untimely rains and floods. The Grey relational analysis was adopted to study the impact of hydrological parameters on runoff. Vegetation was considered as reference parameter. The GRA analysis revealed that the primary influencing parameter on vegetation is temperature, ultimately effecting runoff which was ranked as 1. The second influencing parameter was rainfall and third was runoff. Out of the total 13 years tested, best vegetation response was observed in 2014 year with low rainfall, low runoff and good vegetation. Keywords: Landsat, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, SCS-CN, Image difference technique, Grey relation Analysis and GISThesisItem Open Access ASSESSMENT OF HYDROMETEOROLOGICAL DROUGHT EFFECTS ON GROUNDWATER RESOURCES IN ANANTAPURAMU DISTRICT(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) UMA BAI, D; SAROJINI DEVI, BDrought is a disastrous natural phenomenon that has significant impact on social, economical, agricultural and environmental spheres. Drought is one of the world’s costliest natural disasters, causing an average 400-500 billion rupees in global damages annually and affecting more people than any other form of natural catastrophe. India is the seventh largest and second most populous country in the world. Its area is 2.2 per cent of the total world geographical area and about 16 per cent of the entire human race resides in its fold. The present study was motivated by the fact that no such study related to ground water resources was reported in Andhra Pradesh in general and Rayalaseema districts in particular Anantapuramu district prone to experience chronic drought conditions regularly. The present Post Graduate Research entitled “Assessment of hydro-meteorological drought effects on groundwater resources in Anantapuramu district” is proposed to i) to analyze the rainfall and groundwater levels data of the study area. ii) to calculate the drought indices such as Deciles, SPI (Standardized Precipitation Index), GRI (Groundwater Resource Index) SDI (Stream flow drought index) and SRI (Standardized Runoff Index) for the study area and iii) to suggest suitable drought mitigation measures for the study area. Details of meteorological parameters were collected from the chief planning department and analyzed, hydrological parameters which were analyzed from the data collected from Ground water Department, Anantapuramu. The total geographical area of the Anantapuramu district is 19,197sq.kms.There was a wide variation in rainfall in Anantapuramu district both spatially and temporally. The weighted mean rainfall (1988-2017) in Anantapuramu district is 542.2 mm. The highest rainfall was recorded during the year 1996 (793.01mm) followed by the year 2006 (782.96 mm).The lowest rainfall was recorded during the year 2016 (334.4 mm) followed by the year 2003 (370.71 mm) indicating the drought severity in the district. The water table level (2001-2017) in the study area fluctuated between 14.73-19.77 m. The groundwater level was found to be deepest during the months of August and September (19.77 and 19.53 m) respectively, and the water table level was shallowest during the months of December and January (14.73 and 14.83 m) respectively. Based on the research work carried out, the major conclusions drawn are Deciles were computed for the long historical rainfall data of 30 years over Anantapuramu district and historical drought events were identified which fall under the deciles 1-2 and 3-4. It is evident from the results that there were 12 drought events (1990, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2011, 2014 and 2016) in the period 1988-2017. The analysis of SPI-1 month showed that severe drought occurred in two mandals, moderate drought occurred in 15 mandals and 46 mild droughts. The analysis of SPI-6 month showed that 27 mandals had extreme drought conditions, 33 mandals had severe drought conditions and 3 mandals had moderate drought conditions. The analysis of SPI-12 month showed that 37 extreme, 20 severe, 4 moderate drought conditions in Anantapuramu district. The analysis of GRI-1 showed that 17 mandals had extreme groundwater drought situations, 18 mandals had severe water scarcity, 10 mandals had moderate and 2 mandals had mild groundwater drought. The analysis of GRI-6 showed that 25 mandals had extreme groundwater drought, 23 mandals had severe groundwater drought, 9 mandals had moderate groundwater drought problem. The analysis of GRI- 12 month showed that 15 mandals had extreme groundwater drought situations, 18 mandals had severe groundwater drought situations, 12 mandals had moderate groundwater drought, 2 mandals had mild groundwater drought. The variation of Standardized runoff index values for the period 1988-2017. High magnitude of drought was observed in the year 2005 with Standardized runoff index value -2.12. During the drought years Standardized runoff index varies from - 2.12 in the year 2005 to -0.32 in the year 1997. Most of the year’s fall in the range of mild drought. The drought characteristics based on the SPI-12-month, which indicates long-term drought (particularly for the groundwater scenario in the region). It is interesting to note that the number of drought events has decreased substantially, but the duration and severity have increased. Drought impacts can be minimised through developing suitable drought mitigation strategies. Mitigation actions can be taken before or at the beginning of drought. Therefore, early warning systems need to be developed for the region based on the real-time monitoring of indicators based on rainfall, soil moisture, surface water, and groundwater, so as to make the region drought-proof and improve the sustainability of agriculture in Anantapuramu district.ThesisItem Open Access ASSESSMENT OF IRRIGATION POTENTIAL UTILIZATION IN IRRIGATION PROJECTS USING REMOTE SENSING AND GIS(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, Guntur, 2016) MADHUSUDHANA REDDY, K; SATYANARAYANA, T. V.Irrigated agriculture is increasing in India, enhancing irrigation potential by huge investments on irrigation projects. Andhra Pradesh is one of the states in which massive irrigation infrastructure is existing under more than 100 projects and huge irrigation potential is created (~40 Lakh ha) and many more projects are in progress. Monitoring of irrigation projects for the assessment of irrigation potential utilisation is essential on a regular basis to have a continuous performance evaluation. Remote sensing and GIS techniques are effective tools for monitoring irrigation projects on regular basis. Spatial and temporal monitoring of the projects during the crop seasons namely kharif, rabi and summer is necessary to monitor the irrigation potential utilization and take the necessary steps for interventions for improvement. This objective requires spatio-temporal information in synoptic view to know the progressive and problematic pockets in irrigated agricultural lands. Satellite data provides scope for synoptic coverage and multi-temporal datasets. Presently, there are number of satellites providing such datasets and many of them are available in public domains. Methodology was established for the use of public domain satellite datasets from Landsat 8 OLI (Operational Land Imager). The present study is focussed on investigation on assessment of irrigation potential utilization from public domain satellite datasets, development of methodology for assessment of irrigation potential utilization in major irrigation commands, assessment of analysis on irrigation potential creation and utilization scenario. Irrigation potential utilisation is estimated in 8 irrigation commands in the study covering the major irrigation systems in Andhra Pradesh like Nagarjuna Sagar Project right canal command and Kurnool-Cuddapah (KC) canal system, Irrigated delta systems like Pennar delta, Kanupur canal system and also smaller projects like Swarnamukhi, Thatipudi, Konam and Raiwada where the irrigation is through reservoir and also by use of smaller irrigation tanks. Cloud free Satellite data from Landsat 8 OLI representing kharif (September/October-December), rabi (February/ March) and summer (April/May) seasons were selected for these commands. The boundaries of study area were digitised from the guidance available in public domain ISRO-Bhuvan and India WRIS web sites. The software used for analysis of satellite images were ERDAS IMAGINE and Arc GIS. Satellite images were processed for generation of monthly crop masks using unsupervised image classification and NDVI for the irrigation command areas. Estimation of the irrigation potential utilisation in command area is demonstrated though grid (1 ha) based approach used to spatially extent over the entire command. Further seasonal crop maps were generated with spatial analysis of three season satellite data-derived crop masks. The information available from Government of Andhra Pradesh web sites was utilised for collection of base line information on selected pilot irrigation areas of and the ayacut details representing the cropping pattern and irrigation potential creation /contemplated. Irrigation potential utilisation in various irrigation commands is as follows: NSP Right Canal command: Kharif crop constitutes 78 per cent, rabi crop constitutes 32 per cent and summer/annual crops are about 4 per cent and two seasonal crops about 11 per cent of the ayacut designed during the year 2014-15 with irrigation intensity is 125 per cent. Total releases were about 157.25 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 596699 ha and hence the water productivity 3794 ha per TMC and delta 0.74 m. Pennar Delta: Kharif crop constitutes 56 per cent, rabi crop constitutes 78 per cent and summer/annual crops are about 10 per cent of the ayacut designed and irrigation intensity is 144 per cent. Total releases are about 21.343 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 144481 ha and hence the water productivity 6769 ha per TMC and delta 0.41 m. Kurnool Cuddapah canal: Kharif crop constitutes 74912 ha and rabi crop constitutes 38545 ha during the year 2014-15 and irrigation intensity is 151 per cent. Total releases are about 35.768 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 112737 ha and hence the water productivity 3151 ha per TMC and delta 0.89 m. Kanupur Canal system: Kharif crop constitutes 65 per cent, rabi crop constitutes 50 per cent and summer/annual crops are about 6 per cent of the ayacut designed and irrigation intensity is 121 per cent. Total releases are about 5.467 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 30913 ha and hence the water productivity 5654 ha per TMC and delta 0.49 m. Swarnamukhi Irrigation Project: Kharif crop constitutes 71 per cent (3328 ha), rabi crop constituted 126 per cent (5902 ha) and summer/annual crops were about 4 per cent (183 ha) of the ayacut during the year 2014-15 and irrigation intensity was 201 per cent, it includes self-catchment of Northeast rains. Total releases are about 2.17 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 9413 ha and hence the water productivity 4338 ha per TMC and delta 0.65 m. Sri Vechalapu Palavelli Konam reservoir project: Kharif crop constitutes 89 per cent (4558 ha), rabi crop constitutes 6 per cent (292 ha) and summer/annual crops are about 23 per cent (1198 ha) of the ayacut during the year 2014-15 and irrigation intensity is 118 per cent. Total releases are about 1.54 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 6048 ha and hence the water productivity 3927 ha per TMC and delta 0.72 m. Sri Varada Narayana Murthy Raiwada reservoir project: Kharif crop constitutes 68 per cent (4116 ha), rabi crop constitutes 24 per cent (1429 ha) and summer/annual crops are about 25 per cent (1523 ha) of the ayacut during the year 201415 and irrigation intensity is 117 per cent. Total releases are about 1.53 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 5668 ha and hence the water productivity 3705 ha per TMC and delta 0.76 m. Thatipudi Irrigation project: Kharif crop constitutes 81 per cent (5057 ha), rabi crop constitutes 5 per cent (303 ha) of the ayacut designed ayacut during the year 201415 and irrigation intensity is 88 per cent. Total releases are about 1.39 TMC and irrigation potential utilised was 5486 ha and hence the water productivity 3946 ha per TMC and delta 0.71 m. The analysis over multiple irrigation commands gave an experience for attempting the methodology over a state / river basin and quick analysis can be taken up. The study indicated that the analysis at disaggregated level will be possible to address the micro level information at distributary / blocks. The limitations are the availability of cloud free satellite data especially during the kharif season. This can be over come, if several satellites are launched for increasing the frequency of observations. Satellite data availability in public domain has provided scope for cost-effective solution for acquiring the temporal satellite data at monthly interval over several irrigation commands. Cost free Landsat 8 OLI sensor which has spatial resolution of 30 m data are found to be very much suitable for the study at regional level as 16 days interval data are available from USGS (United States Geological Service) Earth archives in near real time. It was found that the methodology developed will be helpful for the quick analysis of cropping pattern in study area and also reporting the same for near real time analysis. Though the study is conducted in selected irrigation commands, the approach and the experience is useful for the extension of the same in several irrigation commands in Andhra Pradesh state.ThesisItem Open Access AUTOMATION OF NUTRIENT REQUIREMENT IN HYDROPONIC SYSTEM FOR STEVIA CROP CULTIVATION(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, 2023-05-19) RANA PRATHAP, Er. R.; KRUPAVATHI, K.Soil is the most important component for plant growth that supports plant roots, supplies water, air and nutrients. However, soil do impose severe constraints like unsuitable soil conditions, unfavorable soil compaction, poor drainage, soil borne diseases, and room for disease causing microorganisms. Growing land, water and labour are other constrains in urban metropolitan areas. Hence, these conditions are directing us soil less culture for growing crops in small- and large-scale production. The present study was proposed to design automated nutrient regulation in hydroponics environment with automatic nutrient feed technology at Dr. NTR College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. The automated nutrient regulation system for pH and TDS of nutrition water in the hydroponic greenhouse prototype consists of a combination of hardware and software. The hardware design consists of a water temperature sensor, air temperature cum humidity sensor, pH sensor, and TDS nutrition sensor combined with Arduino Uno software connected to four solenoid valves. These valves function to control the water, nutrient solution (TDS), pH-up and down. To set up a hydroponic control and monitoring system, TDS sensor and pH sensor were installed in the nutrient water reservoir. Two reservoirs of 20-Liter capacity for water and nutrient solutions and other two small reservoirs (2 Lit) for pH-up and pH-down solutions were fabricated and connected to nutrient reservoir tank. TDS and pH values of nutrient solution were recorded by using TDS and pH sensor probes respectively. Recorded TDS and pH values were fed to Arduino which adjusts the values, if required, through actuators. The components of the automated nutrient regulation system included GSM module, LCD display, Arduino Uno, sensors. In this study, the sensors are connected to Arduino-Uno controller in which liquid crystal display (LCD) of Arduino-Uno circuit controls and regulates the system based on the developed program. Pre and post calibration was done for all the parameters. TDS and pH values of nutrient solution were sensed by TDS and xiv pH sensor probes sends to Arduino which adjusts the parameter values, if required, through actuators and solenoidal valves. Daily monitored data of relative humidity, Air temperature, Water temperature in the hydroponic system in the closed poly-house controlled environment were recorded with Stevia crop cultivation. The results of the study revealed that the model was also able to monitor and control nutrition plant water according to the requirements of pH (6.1-6.2) and TDS (710-720 ppm) values. The ANR system responded immediately with the change of pH an TDS values released corresponding solutions to bring the nutrient parameters to target range. The better performance of the crop parameters of stevia was achieved under ANR system due to better nutrient regulation. There was no significant difference between ANR system and manual system in case of no. of branches and root length. There was significant difference between ANR system and manual system in case of number leaves and plant height. Healthy plant growth was achieved with ANR system with yield of 0.064 kg higher compared to manual hydroponic system for 200 plants. Keywords: Automated hydroponic system, pH, TDS, Arduino Uno, Solenoid valves, Hydroponics, Sensors, SteviaThesisItem Open Access CHARACTERIZATION OF FUEL BRIQUETTES FROM MAIZE COBS AND COTTON STALKS(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2017) LAVANYA, PURAMSHETTI; BHASKARA RAO, DAgriculture waste management during processing is one of the most serious rural-urban environmental problems in India. The disposal of this agriculture waste in the fields is being done mostly by burning, thereby causing health hazards and air pollution. Adequate means of disposing these wastes are lacking. Hence, converting them to other useful products such as briquettes for fuel is highly essential. In Andhra Pradesh, large quantities of maize cobs and cotton stalks are produced annually and are the two most commonly available agricultural residues that can be utilized for the production of briquettes. In this study, briquettes were produced from these two raw materials using high pressure briquetting machine operated at 118 MPa. Briquettes were produced with the maize cobs and cotton stalks in the ratio of 100M:0C, 50M:50C, 75M:25C, 25M:75C and 0M:100C combinations with and without binders. Briquettes with these combinations were prepared by adding banana peel and molasses as binders at 10% and 15% level (w/w basis). Proximate analysis of briquettes was done in terms of moisture content and per cent ash. The effects of raw material combination, binder type and its proportion on physical properties like compressed density, relaxed density, relaxation ratio, moisture content, diametral expansion, longitudinal expansion, shatter resistance, water absorption and compressive strength were evaluated. Calorific values of the briquettes were also found out to test the suitability of briquettes as fuel. Briquettes with binders had more positive attributes than briquettes without binders. The compressed density and relaxed density of briquettes produced from different treatments ranged from 688.62-1631.48 kg m-3 and 595.04-1495.81 kg m-3 respectively. Relaxation ratio of briquettes produced from these treatments ranged from 0.82 and 1.57. The moisture content of briquettes ranged from 2.69% to 19.23% (w.b.). Shatter resistance of briquettes produced from different treatments ranged from 29.44% Name of the Author : P. LAVANYA Title of the thesis : “CHARACTERIZATION OF FUEL BRIQUETTES FROM MAIZE COBS AND COTTON STALKS” Degree to which it is submitted : Master of Technology Faculty : Agricultural Engineering Major field of study : PROCESSING AND FOOD ENGINEERING Major Advisor : Dr. D. BHASKARA RAO University : Acharya N.G Ranga Agricultural University Year of Submission : 2017 to 100%. Compressive strength and water absorption of briquettes ranged from 644.87- 3965.31 kPa and 32.96% to 190.57% respectively. The ash content and calorific value of different combinations were 2.1% to 4.42% and 1749.89-3606.09 kcal kg-1 respectively. Among all treatments in terms of all the properties, briquettes prepared from 100% cotton stalks and 75C:25M were rated as best. Briquettes prepared from 75M:25C ranked last. Cotton stalks briquettes had good strength properties compared to maize cobs briquettes. Net cost of production for maize cobs and cotton stalks were Rs.3840 tonne-1 and Rs. 3340 tonne-1 , respectively. Key words: Binder, banana peel, molasses, ash, calorific value, compressed density, compressive strength, shatter resistance and cost economics.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF A PROTRAY VACUUM SEEDER FOR CROP NURSERY(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) VAISHNAVI, DASARI; CAROLIN RATHINAKUMARI, AProduction of good quality seedlings is very much essential for getting high yield and quality crop. Today, direct seeding into plug trays with 50 to 400 cells is the preferred method. Vegetable seeds are small in volume, light in weight and the punching of pricking holes or dibbling operation and sowing in seedling trays are very tedious and repetitive task. Engineering properties of the seeds like linear dimensions, one thousand seed weight, bulk density and terminal velocity influence the performance of seed singulation mechanism in terms of pickup, singulation and drop of seeds. Hence these properties were determined to design two important components viz., seed tray and seed pickup systems of protray vacuum seeder. Among the seeds used in vegetable nursery the linear dimensions (length, width and thickness), one thousand seed weight and bulk density of vegetable seeds are found for capsicum 4.28±0.03, 3.89±0.02, 0.54±0.01 mm, 8.2±0.07 g, 643.61±7.73 kg m-3 respectively. By considering these properties, seed picking units of existing vacuum seeder was modified with hypodermic needles of inner diameter 0.84, 0.69, 0.60 and 0.51 mm and performance study was conducted at a different suction pressure levels viz., 60, 80, 100 and 120 mm of Hg for chilli, brinjal, tomato, capsicum, cabbage, knol-khol and marigold to optimize design and operational Parameters. It was observed that nozzle orifice size of 0.51 mm at 80 and 60 mm of Hg suction pressure had highest seed singles pickup (%) for all the seeds. A pipe type vacuum seeder was then designed, developed and experiments were conducted to standardise the location of vacuum inlet viz., inlet at one corner, inlets at diagonal ends, inlet at center on one side and inlets at center on both ends for highest seed pickup efficiency. The experiments were conducted for one selected flat shape seed and for one round shape seed. Four different vacuum inlet locations were made to select best location of inlet such that it gives maximum percent of singles. Performance was evaluated with optimized parameters 0.69, 0.60 and 0.51 mm at single pressure (80 mm of Hg) for flat seed (chilli seed) and round seed (knol-khol). Highest per cent of singles were observed with 0.51 mm orifice size. It was observed that vacuum inlet provided at one corner of pipe had maximum percent of singles as 91.33%, doubles, triples and missings as 2.67% and 96.67% pickup for knol-khol seed. It was also observed that per cent singles, per cent doubles, per cent triples, per cent missings and per cent pickup were 74, 17.33, 5.33 and 6.67 % for chilli seeds respectively. The capacity of protray vacuum seeder was 100 protrays per hour. Key words: Vegetable nursery, vegetable seeds, protray seeder, nursery mechanization.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF AUTOMATIC DIBBLE TRANSPLANTER FOR PAPER POT VEGETABLE SEEDLINGS(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY) RAJ KIRAN, Er. B.; SANJEEVA REDDY, B.India is the second largest producer of vegetables in the world. Chilli in terms of vegetable crop extended to an area of 3.08 lakh hectares, with production and productivity of 3.59 million metric tons and 11.64 MT ha-1, respectively during the year 2017-18 (Horticultural statistics at a glance, 2018). Almost in all parts of India, vegetable transplanting is carried out manually. Mechanization in vegetable transplanting is the need of the hour to reduce the demand in man-hours, drudgery in transplanting postures. Semi-automatic transplanter may not be continuously operated due to stress on the labour while feeding the seedlings. The mechanisms involved in picking the seedlings from the portrays and transplanting without seedlings damage was complex. Hence, the work was carried out to design and develop an automatic dibble type vegetable transplanter for singulated paper pot raised seedlings. A paper pot making tool was developed to fabricate the cylindrical pots of 82 cm3. Three potting mixtures with composition of vermicompost, farmyard manure and black soil in proportions of 4:1:1 (P1), 1.5:1:1 (P2), 0.6:1:1(P3) and fourth pot mixture of coir pith and vermicompost of ratio 4:1(P4) were filled in pots and raised in a shade net. Seedlings of 25, 35 and 45 days, pot moisture contents of without hardening (M1), one day hardened (M2) and 1.5 days hardened were selected to identify the suitable paper pot mixtures with minimum pot weight loss during gravity dropping and with better growth characteristics. Seedling height, canopy spread, stem diameter and number of leaves were measured at different growth stages. The transplanter was designed to convey, eject and to carry the seedlings from the linearly moving conveyor to planting zone. Seedling combinations were selected by considering the growth characteristics and minimum pot weight loss for optimizing the machine parameters. Serpentine belt drive type and cell type circulating seedling conveyors were developed and tested under stationary condition. Cell type circulating conveyor was selected due its higher conveying efficiency. Dibbling unit was developed based on the four-bar linkage mechanism, with inner driving rotor and outer eccentric rotor xxiii coupled by a connector which always keeps the rotating dibble cups in vertical position by self adjustment of eccentric rotor. A confiner fixed on non-rotating side of telescopic dibble shaft allows the dibble half cups to move in constrained path resulting in opening of cups. Hinge and reciprocating type seedlings ejecting elements were developed to push the seedling in to the dibble cup. Linear movement of seedling on cell type circulating conveyor was synchronized with rotating cup by providing a speed ratio of 0.83 between the dibble shaft and seedling conveying shaft. The movement when the seedling is in line with the cup, the cup shaft of dibble wheel pushes the actuation lever of ejecting mechanism to transfer the motion to seedling ejecting element for pushing the seedling in to dibble cup. Soil bin trails were conducted with 35 days aged seedling of P3 potting mixture and moisture content M2 (28.25 ± 3.6 % d.b). The effect of forward speed (0.59, 0.93 and 1.5 km h-1), conveyor inclination (0°, 5° and 10°) and speed ratio (0.3, 0.83 and 1.6) between dibble and conveying shafts were tested for conveying efficiency of cell type circulating conveying unit. The effect of position of confiner (AC1. AC2 and AC3), level of compaction (111.7 and 312. 1 kPa) and forward speed on seedling pulled (%), verticalness of seedling (%), depth of planting and seedling spacing was tested for dibbling performance. Type of ejecting element (HT and RT), speed ratio and forward speed on seedling damage on conveyor and seedling missing at dibble cups were tested for seedling ejecting performance. Machine parameters were numerically optimized in factorial randomized multilevel categoric design in Design Expert Version 11. In soil bin tests at optimized forward speed of 0.59 km h-1, the conveying efficiency, seedling damage on conveyor, missing of seedlings at dibble cups (%), seedlings pulled (%), verticalness of seedlings (%), depth of planting, seedling spacing and planting efficiency were observed as 96.98 ± 3.12 %, 2.0 ± 2.74 %, 18.42 ± 3.15, 1.25 ± 2.8 %, 92.4 ± 3.21, 5.80 ± 0.85 cm, 60.8 ± 0.5 cm, 91.15 ± 3.73 %, respectively. Developed machine was evaluated in field and average depth of planting, plant to plant spacing, missing seedlings at dibble cups, verticalness of seedlings, seedlings pulled were observed as 5.9 ± 0.3 cm, 60.9 ± 1.4 cm, 18.18 ± 2.8 %, 90.44 ± 2.23 %, 2.53 ± 0.91 %, respectively. Draft, wheel slip, planting rate, fuel consumption was 0.153 ± 0.04 kN, 1.84 ± 0.44 %, 27 seedlings per minute and 1.33 l h-1. Theoretical and actual field capacities of transplanter were 0.069 ± 0.004 ha h-1 and 0.036 ha h-1 respectively. Plant mortality after 10 days, 20 days of transplanting and labour requirement of transplanter and manual transplanting was observed as 5.34 % and 0 %, 7.91 % and 2.08 %, 55 and 155 man-h ha-1 respectively. Cost of operation of transplanter was 333 Rs h-1 (9250 Rs ha-1). Labour and cost saving with developed transplanter over manual transplanting with paper pot seedlings was 64.50 % and 33.12 %, respectively. The developed automatic dibble type vegetable transplanter for paper pot vegetable seedlings performed satisfactorily with field efficiency of 52.26 ± 2.68 %. Keywords: Automatic, Vegetable transplanter, Conveying unit, Dibbling, Pot seedlings, and chilli seedlings.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF GROUNDNUT PLANTER - CUM- SITE SPECIFIC PRECISION WATER APPLICATOR(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) ANITHA, GUGULOTH; ASHOK KUMAR, AGroundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is the sixth most important oilseed crop in the world. It contains 48-50% oil and 26-28% protein and is a rich source of dietary fiber, minerals and vitamins. Planting operation is one of the most important cultural practices associated with crop production. Increase in crop yield, cropping reliability, cropping frequency and crop returns all depend on the uniform and timely establishment of optimum plant population. In India, most of the farmers are small and marginal farmers; hence, there is a demand of small implements which could be used as multifunctional devices by attaching simple components to be fitted to the low hp tractor. In general, the groundnut crop has been planted during starting of the rainy season and most of the crop is cultivated under rain fed conditions. The basic idea of ground nut planter cum site specific precision water applicator is application of water/chemical at the targeted location i.e. seed placement and it can be done using modern sensors. With this system, seed planting and water/chemical application can be done simultaneously in a single operation. This increases the moisture content of soil and sustainability of seed for germination during nonrainy days. An attempt was made to develop a groundnut planter suitable for mini tractor. Before designing of groundnut planter suitable for the mini-tractor, all the required components were designed individually, made auto-cad drawings and fabricated the total machine using created drawings. An Electronic Control Unit (ECU) was developed for delivering the precision water at required time, by detecting the seed in seed delivery tube using IR obstacle sensor and activation of solenoid valve for delivering site specific precision water. The developed ground nut planter and electronic control unit for site specific precision water application unit were integrated to work as a single unit for planting as well as site specific water/chemical applications simultaneously. Initially ECU was tested under laboratory and it was observed that, the three IR sensors were responded well while focusing the seed in seed delivery tube. During field evaluation, it was observed that the draft force requirement of the planter found to vary from 125 to 296 kg as changing the depth of operation from 5.3 to 11.5 cm at varying speed of operation. The maximum seed mixing index of the planter was found as 9%. The uniformity of seed spacing in all the rows found to vary from 9.6 to 11.5 cm. The theoretical and actual field capacity of the planter found to vary from 0.06 to 0.15 ha/h and 0.05 to 0.11 ha/h as change in speed of operation from 1 to 2.5 km/h. The percentage wheel slip of the groundnut planter found to vary from 10.52 to 23.68% at varying depths of operation. The seed damage and water saving percentage of the planter cum developed ECU is 5% and 77% respectively. With this sensor based technology application of excess liquid chemical consumption could be saved which leads to reduction in environmental pollution Keywords: IR obstacle sensor, Solenoid valve, Microcontroller, Water saving; Planter.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF HIGH CLEARANCE UNIT IN SMALL TRACTOR FOR COTTON CROP(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) ANANDA BABU, V; RAMANA, CAgriculture is one of the major sectors in Indian economy. Nearly 60 per cent of the population depends on agriculture and it is considered as backbone of the country. Cotton ‘the white gold’ is one of the most important commercial crops playing a key role in the economical, political and social affairs of the country. It sustains the country’s cotton textile industry, which is perhaps the largest segment of organized industries in the country. India ranks third in the world in production of cotton crop. The existing clearance of the small tractor was increased with developed high clearance unit using mild steel as a structure. The tractor was lifted up to height of 1.4 m using front and rear legs of front axle and rear axle. A frame was developed to support the tractor weight and dynamic loads of the legs were provided for all the wheels during motion. The drive from the tractor rear axle was transferred to the rear wheels using chain and sprocket arrangement for both the rear wheels. The front legs of front wheels and rear legs of rear wheels were connected using horizontal bar for proper supporting and load distribution. The dynamic analysis of the tractor with weeding and spraying unit was studied and found that, the tractor is in stable condition during operation up to a depth of 10 cm. It was found that the location of centre of gravity of tractor is 1.9 m from the ground surface. The critical speed of tractor is 2.55 ms-1 and the front and rear wheel reactions are about 208.5 kg and 796.5 kg respectively at maximum depth of operation. The spraying and weeding units were constructed on the developed high clearance unit spraying of the chemical was made possible at various stages of the crop, a spraying unit with capacity of 300 liters’ was developed and attached to the high clearance tractor. Three nozzles were used and mounted on the boom to cover three rows of the crop. The height of nozzles from the ground can be adjusted based on the crop requirement. A weeding unit was also developed and attached to the tractor to remove the weeds in-between the rows of cotton crop. A horizontal blade was used to scrape and remove the weeds from the soil. The blade used for weeding was made from cast iron and connected to the tractor rear wheels for proper supporting. Both the spraying and weeding operations can be simultaneously done in single operation which lead to reduction in cultivation cost of the crop as well as fuel consumption for single run when compared to two times operation of the tractor. The performance of the developed high clearance sprayer was evaluated in the field during the period of rabi season in 2015-16. The height of the boom and position of the nozzles were adjusted with cotton crop so that the crop was not damaged by the boom and also without interfering with spray swath and characteristics of droplets intact over plants. The constant pressure was maintained by boom sprayer for entire operation of the crop. The field performance of developed high clearance sprayer indicated that the machine can cover an area of 1200 m2 with 150 litres, the tank is refilled after spraying 0.24 ha area, the tank refilling time was 15 minutes and the was varied from 1.8 km/h to 3.2 km/h depending upon the field condition. Three types of blades developed for weeding were tested at different inclinations i.e 50, 150 and 300 and at various operating depths. It was observed maximum weeding efficiency 93 % and lower draft force 76 kg for blade 1 (plain blade with one side sharpened) at an angle of 150. Four nozzles were selected and studied the performance on farm use. It was found that solid cone nozzle is suitable for better spraying operation. Developed high clearance tractor with spraying and weeding attachment can be used simultaneously on single run so that, the time and labour can be saved and it can be used for any tall crops for intercultural operations. The cost economics analysis of developed high clearance tractor showed that 12 percent saving in cost compared with farmers traditional method. Similarly for entire crop period 199.64 man-hours were also saved with high clearance tractor compared to the manual method.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF HYBRID SOLAR PHOTOVOLTAIC GREENHOUSE DRYER(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2017) MADHAVA, M; SIVALA KUMARIndia is the second largest producer of rice (Oryza sativa L.) in the world next to China with production of 104.8 MT during the year 2014-15. Andhra Pradesh is the third largest producer of rice in India, about 9 per cent of paddy is lost due to use of old and outdated methods of post harvest practices. Solar drying of agricultural products in enclosed structures by forced convection is an attractive way of reducing post-harvest losses. Study has been conducted to design and develop a hybrid solar photovoltaic greenhouse dryer for drying of paddy. A greenhouse dryer with 4467 mm length, 2134 mm width and 2591 mm height at the centre was designed and fabricated with 50.8×25.4 mm mild steel (MS) pipe, 19×30.2 mm MS angles. Transparent twin wall polycarbonate sheet of 6 mm thickness was used as a covering material. Forced ventilation was provided with 9-inch diameter exhaust fan which runs at 1200 rpm with rated power of 40 Watt. Two 150 W power capacity solar photovoltaic panels with 18.5 V rated voltage and 8.10 A rated current were used to drive the exhaust fans. 1 Study on assessment of ten years solar radiation data of Andhra Pradesh state revealed that, an average global solar insolation in the state was 5.21 kWh m-2. Average air temperature of 27.28 °C, 63.75% relative humidity and 3.4 ms-1 wind speed was observed. Performance evaluation was conducted under no load condition. It was observed that the average dryer air temperature was 7.6-13.4 °C and 6.3-13.2 °C (22- 43%) higher than the ambient temperature during Rabi and Kharif seasons, respectively. Ambient air temperature varied between 29-38 °C and 25-36 °C during Rabi and Kharif seasons, respectively. Average relative humidity of the green house dryer was 26-47% and 23-40% less as compared to ambient relative humidity during Rabi and Kharif seasons, respectively, where as ambient relative humidity varied between 34-64% and 44-68% during Rabi and Kharif seasons, respectively. Forced ventilation was achieved by DC exhaust fans, which was powered with photovoltaic panels. Exhaust air flow rate varied in the range of 38.93-81.95 m3 min-1, and 28-63 m3 min-1 during Rabi and Kharif seasons respectively. Performance evaluation of solar greenhouse dryer under full load condition for kharif and Rabi paddy was conducted with three different bed thicknesses (5, 10 and 15 cm). Kharif paddy was dried from 26.5% to 12.15%, 25.3% to 10.87% and 26.15% to 11.13% moisture content (w.b.) within 25, 25 and 16 h of drying for 15, 10 and 5 cm bed thickness, respectively. Highest drying rate observed during the first day of drying was 2.02 %(d.b) h-1 for 5 cm, whereas 1.62 and 1.27%(d.b) h-1 drying rates were observed for 10 cm and 15 cm, respectively. Rabi paddy was dried from 22.3% to 12.57%, 22.8% to 11.57% and 22.4% to 10% (w.b) in 21, 21 and 17 h of drying for 15, 10 and 5 cm, respectively. Highest drying rate observed during the first day of drying was 2.0, 1.29 and 1.27%(d.b) h-1 for 5, 10 and 15 cm, respectively. Milling quality analysis showed that there was no significant effect of season, replication and interaction of season and depth on brown rice yield (BRY), milling recovery (MR) and head rice yield (HRY), however, grain bed thickness had significant effect at 5% significant level. Highest HRY of 66.4% achieved was for 10 cm bed thickness, as compared to 62.9% and 65.4% for 5 and 15 cm beds thick, respectively. Broken rice obtained was 3.66% during Kharif season which was significantly lower than that the broken rice (5.11%) obtained during Rabi season. Head rice yield in the greenhouse dryer was much higher than mechanical drying (63.5%) and open sun drying (62.91%). Highest germination percentage (90%) was achieved during Kharif 2 paddy drying and there was no significant difference in germination among greenhouse and open sun drying at 5% significant level. Drying data were fitted to the eleven thin layer drying models. Among them, logarithmic model was found to be the most suitable model for describing the drying characteristics of thin layer drying of Rabi paddy. Logarithmic model gave R2 = 0.9891, χ 2 = 0.00689, RMSE = 0.024477 and MBE = 4.02×10-8. Midilli model was found to be the best to describe the drying behaviour of thin layer drying of Kharif paddy. Midilli model gave R2 = 0.9953, χ2 = 0.0000408, RMSE = 0.019042 and MBE = -1.3×10-5 . Payback period of the solar greenhouse dryer was 1.84 years and gave 49.34% rate of return. Cost of drying was `0.2 per kg of paddy. Cost-benefit ratio was 4.13. Keywords: PV potential, forced ventilation, greenhouse drying, open sun drying, paddy drying, economic evaluation, mathematical modellingThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOW-COST RIPENING CHAMBER FOR MANGO AND PAPAYA(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, 2023-05-26) LAVANYA, K.; BHASKARA RAO, D.Mango (Mangifera indica L.) is one of the most extensively exploited fruit because of its flavour, fragrance and juice content. Papaya (Carica papaya L.) is a very wholesome fruit, and it ranks second only to mango as a source of β carotene, the precursor of vitamin A. Mango and papaya fruits are vulnerable to post harvest losses due to their high perishable nature. Fruit ripening involves a series of physiological, biochemical and organoleptic changes that lead to the development of a soft, edible, ripe fruit with desirable quality. Ripening is one of the post harvest management practices which involve high initial investment and operational cost. In order to meet the farmer’s requirement there is a need to develop ripening facilities at farmer’s level and it is essential to optimize the ripening parameters. Using ripening agents like ethylene and ethephon can accelerate fruit ripening when needed. This brings more advantages for distribution to distant markets. Hence, a low-cost ripening chamber was designed and fabricated to ripen the fruits in the present investigation. The design consists of a single-stage vapor-compression system having four components namely compressor, condenser, expansion valve and evaporator. Theoretical cooling load required for development of 3 tons capacity was 2 TR. To achieve desired cooling in ripening chamber, the required capacities of compressor, condenser and chilling tank were 5, 6 and 0.5 hp, respectively. The present design dimensions of ripening chamber are 12 × 10 × 12 ft. Polyurethane Foam was selected as insulating material to reduce heat loss. A chilling tank was also introduced in the design to maintain long cooling times in the ripening chamber which resulted in low running time of compressor thereby reducing the power consumption. The experiment has been carried out in Department of Processing and Food Engineering, Dr. NTR College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. Mango (Neelum variety) and Papaya (Red Lady variety) fruits were treated with different concentrations of ethylene (60, 80, 100 & 120 ppm) for 3 minutes and ethephon (250, 500, 750 and 1000 ppm) at different temperatures such as 16, 20, 24 and 28 °C for 5 minutes with different levels of relative humidity of 80, 85, 90 and 95%. Untreated xx fruits were kept at ambient temperature (25-35 °C). The ripened fruits were analyzed for physico-chemical changes such as TSS, TA, WL, pH, Firmness, Reducing sugars, Ascorbic acid and Colour. All the observations on physico-chemical parameters were recorded at an interval of two days till the fruits were ripened. In mango fruits, it was observed that the maximum fruit firmness (7.09 N) was observed in control sample against the ripening duration of 12 days while minimum firmness in fruits treated with ethylene (1.72 N) and ethephon (2.18 N) for the ripening period of 8 days. In ethylene treated samples, maximum TSS observed was 22.67 °Brix whereas in ethephon treated samples, maximum TSS observed was 20.19 °Brix. The minimum L* value (49.43) was observed in control sample and maximum L* value in fruits treated with ethylene (64.02) and ethephon (56.02) during ripening period of 8 days. The minimum a* value (16.37) was observed in control sample and maximum a* value in fruits treated with ethylene (27.04) and ethephon (25.12). The minimum b* value (39.21) was observed in control sample and maximum b* value in fruits treated with ethylene (57.04) and ethephon (55.69) during ripening period of 8 days. In papaya fruits, it was observed that the maximum fruit firmness (6.11 N) was observed in control sample against ripening duration of 14 days while minimum firmness in fruits treated with ethylene (4.58 N) and ethephon (4.34 N) for the ripening duration of 8 days. The maximum TSS was observed in fruits treated with ethylene (20.67 °Brix) and ethephon (19.14 °Brix) concentrations and minimum TSS in control sample (12.11 °Brix). The minimum L* value (50.32) was observed in control sample and maximum L* value in fruits treated with ethylene (59.71) and ethephon (57.19) during ripening period of 8 days. The minimum a* value (18.34) was observed in control sample and maximum a* value in fruits treated with ethylene (24.39) and ethephon (25.42). The minimum b* value (37.15) was observed in control sample and maximum b* value in fruits treated with ethylene (43.24) and ethephon (44.71) during ripening period of 8 days. Performance evaluation of ripening chamber revealed the optimum operating conditions for mango fruits treated with ethylene and ethephon as; 95% RH, 20 °C temperature, ethylene concentration of 100 ppm, ripening period of 4 days; and 95% RH, 24 °C temperature, ethephon concentration of 750 ppm, ripening period of 6 days respectively. The optimum operating conditions for papaya fruits treated with ethylene and ethephon were 90% RH, 24 °C temperature, ethylene concentration of 100 ppm, ripening period 6 days; and 90% RH, 24 °C temperature, ethephon concentration of 750 ppm, ripening period of 8 days respectively. In mangoes, fruits treated with ethylene at 100 ppm, 20 °C at 95% RH recorded highest score for overall acceptability (8.61) during the ripening period of 4 days. Fruits treated with ethephon at 750 ppm, 24 °C at 95% RH recorded highest score for overall acceptability (8.69) during the ripening period of 6 days. In papaya, fruits treated with ethylene at 100 ppm, 24 °C at 90% RH recorded highest score for overall acceptability (8.65) during the ripening period of 6 days. Fruits treated with ethephon at 750 ppm, 24 °C at 90% RH recorded highest score for overall acceptability (8.69) during the ripening period of 8 days. By using ANSYS-CFD simulation, the optimal temperature conditions of both mango and papaya were checked for different air flow combinations in the ripening chamber, where the temperature stabilized for air velocity of 0.5 m/s. For the present designed ripening chamber, it was found that power consumption was less (12.3 kWh/day) than that of the commercial ripening chamber xxi (20.1 kWh/day). Benefit cost ratio for developed ripening chamber with a chilling tank was found to be 1.05. Hence, the designed ripening chamber is economically viable. Keywords: ripening chamber, temperature, RH, ethylene, ethephon, ripening period, physico-chemical changes, CFD, cost economics.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF MINI-TRACTOR DRAWN TRANSPLANTER FOR VEGETABLE CROPS(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) LAKSHMI DURGA, MATTAPARTHI; SRINIVASA RAO, AIndia ranks second in vegetables production in the world, after China. During 2016-17, the cultivated area under vegetables is estimated at 10.3 million hectares with a production of 175 million tonnes in India which is about 1.5% higher than the previous year. In India, labor requirement for manual transplanting of vegetables varies from 240 to 320 man-h /ha. Most of the cost is attributed to the labour involved in handling seedling. Use of tractor drawn vegetable planter has enabled farmers to cover large areas in a short period economically. These factors show the need for mechanization of transplantation even more than before. The transplanters are either semi - automatic or automatic. Although these automatic transplanters are not viable, because their structural complexity and requirement of skilled operator. In Andhra Pradesh, small land holdings contribute 27.8% for agriculture. In small holdings, Medium horse power tractors ranging 18-22 hp are most popular in India than the large tractors. Hence, there is a need to introduce low horse power tractor operated matching equipment to improve the socio- economic condition of farming community. The present study conducted to develop a single row mini tractor drawn vegetable transplanter and evaluated in sandy loam soil for its performance and accuracy in terms of seedling spacing, missing index, seedling angle, transplanting efficiency, field efficiency, fuel consumption, power requirement and cost economics. A single row vegetable transplanter was developed which is suitable for mini tractor. It consists of revolving magazine type seed metering mechanism. During operation transplanting with the developed single row transplanter was done by loosening the hardened plug seedlings in nursery trays before transplanting by the operator. The cells of revolving magazine type metering system was filled with seedling before transplanting and the remaining seedling trays were placed on the each of the seedling trays. Before fabrication, all the compound drawings were made and assembled in Pro-e software for fabrication accurecy. The working width of developed machine was 0.6 m and equipped with rotating magazine type metering system, double disc type furrow opener and a pair of press wheel set for the purpose of soil covering around the seedling for erect position. During evaluation, it was observed that the spacing between two seedlings in a row i.e. 44.71 cm, least missing index of 2.45 %, seedling angle 8.78º and highest transplanting efficiency 90% for brinjal was found at 1.0 km h-1 speed which is due to sufficient time for settling of seedling into the soil. Highest missing index 4.52 % for tomato seedling was observed at rated speed of 2.5 km h-1. Least seedling angle 8.78º for brinjal was observed at 1.0 km h-1 and highest was 17.41º for tomato at 2.5 km h-1. During operation, fuel consumption was observed as 1.33, 1.362 and 1.48 l h-1 at the speed of 1.0, 1.5 and 2.5 km h-1, respectively. The field efficiency varies from 73.3 % to 83.3 %. The equipment showed better results of transplanting efficiency, saving of labour cost (%) and saving of time 28.4 and 93.7 % respectively at 1.0 km h-1. Keywords: Rotating type metering system, seedling spacing, missing index, seedling angle, transplanting efficiency and cost economicsThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF PROTOTYPE RIPENED CHILLI HARVESTER(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) PRABHAKARA RAO, T; RAMANA, CIndia is the world’s largest producer, consumer and exporter of chilli. Chillies are cultivated mainly in tropical and sub-tropical countries like India, Japan, Mexico, Turkey, United states of America and African countries. Chilli is believed to have been introduced to India by Portuguese explorers at Goa in 17th century. The fruit of chilli plants have a variety of names depending on place and type. It is commonly called chilli pepper, red or green pepper, or sweet pepper in Britain, and typically just capsicum in Australian and Indian English. In Indian subcontinent, chillies are produced throughout the year. Two crops are produced in kharif and Rabi seasons in the country. Chilli grown best at 20–30°C temperatures, growth and yields suffer when temperatures exceed 30°C or drops below 15°C for extended periods. Now-a-days, cost of cultivation of chilli is increased day by day due to indiscriminate use of inputs like seeds, fertilizers and pesticides and also scarcity of labour. The major harvest season is between December-March with supply reaching peak levels in February-April. Planting is held mainly during August-October. Chilli cultivation needs more number of labourers for harvesting apart from the usual field operations such as sowing, weeding, pesticide applications, etc. as compared to other field crops. It is harvested (picking) 2 to 4 times and these harvestings are within a short span of time to get the quality produce, otherwise market price of chilli will be reduced. High cost and dearth of labour for hand harvest has resulted in increased chilli production cost declining even as consumption grows. Mechanization is only the way to reduce the cost of harvest and there by cost of production to make farmer comfortable with cost of harvest. The experimental set up was designed with two counter rotating double helical rollers of each length 200 cm and overall diameter 14 cm. The base frame was developed with the height of 100 cm, width of 85 cm and length of 160 cm to house the double helical rollers inside of the base frame. The rollers were fixed in the base frame inclined to the horizontal. The electrical motor was used as a prime mover to operate the double helical rollers at required speed for harvesting of ripens chilli pods. The experimental set up was tested to optimize the design parameters to get the maximum harvesting efficiency.The experimental unit of chilli harvester was fabricated to accommodate four different gaps between two rollers and four rotational speeds of counter rotating double helical rollers. The pulleys were changed on the double helical roller to get the four numbers of speeds like 289 rpm, 393 rpm, 484 rpm and 658 rpm by keeping constant pulley on power source. The four numbers of gaps were provided between the two rollers as 31cm, 32cm, 33cm and 340cm. The chilli harvester efficiency was calculated and varied from 29% to 31%. The harvesting efficiency of experimental set up was not in the acceptable range. The experimental set up was tested in all possible operating parameter combinations. The computed harvesting efficiency of machine observed at rollers speed of 289 rpm and rollers having gap of 320 mm was 9.41% at 2.0 km. h-1 forward speed. Likewise efficiency of machine at 330 mm gap of rollers was 9.97%, 14.00% efficiency was got at 340 mm space between rollers and 13.88% machine efficiency was observed at 350 mm gap between rollers with same 289 rpm of rollers speed with 2.0 km. h-1 forward speed. The roller speed was changed to 393 rpm and the computed resultant efficiencies of machine were 15.65%, 21.04%, 42.16% and 43.78% at rollers gap 320, 330, 340 and 350 mm respectively. The machine was run at 2.0 km. h-1 forward speed 481 rpm rollers speed with 320, 330, 340 and 350 mm space between rollers and computed efficiencies were 15.50%, 46.09%, 73.21% and 64.95% respectively. The efficiencies of machine at 658 rpm rollers speed with variable gaps between rollers 320, 330, 340 and 350 mm were 15.81%, 65.52%, 73.75% and 67.02%, respectively at same forward speed 2.0 km. h-1. In the similar way the machine was tested at 3.5 km. h-1 forward speed with variable gaps between rollers 320, 330, 340 and 350 mm at variable roller speeds 289, 393, 481 and 658 rpm respectively. The maximumefficiency 59.52% at rollers speed 658 rpm with gap 340 mm and minimum efficiency was observed 7.04% at 289 rpm rollers speed with gap between rollers 320 mm. The maximum mechanical damage of the harvested crop was 3.6%. The experimental set up was modified with regards power supply to double helical rollers, rotational speed and gap between the two rollers. The prototype ripened chilli harvester was fabricated with optimized design parameters and hitched to the high clearance tractor with help of two linkages. The power was transmitted to run the double helical rollers from the high clearance tractor PTO. The machine was evaluated in the farmers fields at Murikipadu village in Guntur district. The prototype harvester was operated with the optimized combinations of rollers speed and gap between two rollers like S1G1, S1G2, S1G3, S1G4, S2G1, S2G2, S2G3, S2G4, S3G1, S3G2, S3G3, S3G4, S4G1, S4G2, S4G3 and S4G4. The prototype chilli harvester was evaluated at each combination of rollers and the harvesting efficiency of prototype ripen chilli harvester was 72.08% at the speed 2.0 km. h-1 and roller gap of 340 mm. Thecalculated efficiencies were compared with existing practice of harvesting in manual harvesting. The labour required for harvesting of ripened chilli varied from 350 to 400 man.days per acreand approximate cost incurred for pickings was Rs.93750/- per acre whereas mechanical harvesting with developed machine was Rs.1567 per picking and for two pickings it is Rs.3134 per acre (Rs.7835/- per hectare). More importantly the labour saving was 98% and 2904 man hours when compared to manual harvesting.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF TRACTOR OPERATED GROUNDNUT COMBINE FOR HARVESTED CROP(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) VENNELA, BASIREDDY; RAMANA, CGroundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) is an important oilseed crop in India cultivated in an area of 6.7 million hectares with a production of 7.0 million tonnes annually. The crop can be grown successfully in areas receiving the rainfall ranging from 600 to 1250 mm. The best soils for groundnut crop are sandy loam, loam and medium black with a good drainage system. The present practice of manual harvesting and threshing consumes huge amount of labour to a magnitude of about 175 to 200 women h ha-1. It is very tedious and time consuming operation and is being adopted by for small scale farming. The manual method is the process of harvesting groundnut manually by hand, using expensive human labour. Since it is a labour intensive operation, scarcity of labour is often experienced during the peak harvesting season. One of the solution for reducing losses and dependency on human labour is to mechanize both harvesting and threshing simultaneously in groundnut cultivation. Several efficient independent machines are available for harvesting and threshing separately by manual feeding, but collecting harvested crop and feeding into thresher is again a labour intensive operation. Moreover, the harvesting requires maximum energy and combining may not be feasible with a commonly available tractor. Hence, the combine was developed by designing collecting, conveying and threshing systems for harvested groundnut crop. In this process, available machines like digger shaker and wet pod thresher were evaluated and synchronized the harvested quantity with the threshing ability of selected threshing mechanism. The tractor drawn groundnut digger shaker implement was tested in a total area of 0.27 hectares of sandy loam soil. Trials were carried out and the crop was sown with recommended row spacing 30 cm and 10 cm intra row spacing. The results revealed that plant height, plant width, root length, number of plants, number of pods per plant and number of filled and unfilled pods at the time of harvest was recorded as 35.8 cm, 17.53 cm, 25.27 cm, 27.12, 20.04 and 7.08 respectively. The highest average effective field capacity obtained using tractor drawn groundnut digger shaker was 0.35 ha h-1. The highest average field efficiency of 80.10% recorded for tractor drawn groundnut digger shaker at a soil moisture content of 12%. The haulm yield of the windrows formed for a harvested distance of 10 m was 1.011 kg for xv single row, 2.128 kg for two rows and 3.518 kg for three rows. Performance of wet pod thresher selected for a design was observed at a feed rate of 870 kg h-1 and the thresher output was 227.25 kg h-1 with the total number of the labours of 7. The designed collecting unit was provided with a rake angle of 600. The maximum conveying efficiency of the groundnut combine of 82.40% for the lateral conveyor was obtained at a combination of 1.19 ms-1 peripheral velocity of picker conveyor, forward speed of 1.59 km h-1 and 10 cm spacing of flaps. From the statistical interaction it was confirmed that the second speed of the prime mower i.e. 1.59 km h-1 is optimal for the collecting, conveying and hence the forward speed of the operation was fixed as 1.59 km h-1 for ensuring better collection. Similarly, the spacing of the flaps out of 5, 10 and 15 cm, the 10 cm spaced flaps gave best results in all independent trials with respective conveying of collected crop mass. Hence spacing between flaps designed to be 10 cm. The highest lateral conveying efficiency of 92.40% was obtained at a combination of Sf2-F2-Pv2 i.e. 10 cm - 1.59 km h-1- 1.19 ms-1 which confirmed for designed collecting mechanism. In the design of vertical elevator, the increase in slat spacing from 50 to 100 mm increased the conveying efficiency at all selected levels of peg end projections and peripheral velocity. The highest vertical conveying efficiency of 92.56% was obtained at a combination of S2-Pf2-Pv2 i.e. 10cm -1200- 1.19 ms-1, which confirmed results obtained during the trial. The performance of the developed combine for the harvested crop was observed that efficiency of the lateral and vertical conveyor was 92.40 and 92.56 respectively and the effective field capacity was 0.122 ha h-1 with an average fuel consumption of about 4.67 l h-1. The threshing efficiency of the developed groundnut combine was 82.54% compared to wet pod thresher because of slow feeding of the crop into the thresher from the trough. It was observed that the operation of groundnut combine resulted in 74.92 % saving in cost when compared to conventional method of manual collecting and hand stripping. It was also concluded that, the number of hours required for operating the developed combine harvester was 6.67 machine hours + 16 man hours which was least compared to treatment T3 conventional method of collecting and threshing was 200 h. As cost reduction between T1 and T2 were 1253.75 Rs ha-1 and 1370.94 Rs ha-1, the time required for collecting and threshing was more in T2 which is of 5.7 machine hours and 56 man hours, whereas for T1, it requires only 6.67 machine hours and 16 man hours. An overall saving of man hours from the developed machine was 92% and 71.42% over T3 and T2 respectively. It was observed that the output capacity of the thresher was 216.6 kg h-1 and the broken pod loss was 1.27%. The threshing capacity was 83.58% and the cleaning efficiency was 81.68%. The machine was tested in the experimental plot and field efficiency was found to be 76.72% with optimized design parameters at 1.59 km h-1 forward speed.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN AND FIELD EVALUATION OF LOW COST WIRELESS SOIL MOISTURE SENSOR FOR AUTOMATION OF DRIP IRRIGATION SYSTEM(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2017) RUPAVATHI, K; RAVI BABU, GIn our country, the irrigated area is about 36 per cent of the net sown area. Presently, the agricultural sector accounts for about 83 percent of all water uses. The remaining uses include 5, 3, 6 and 3 per cent respectively for domestic, industrial and energy sectors and other consumers. Increasing competition with the other water users in the future would limit the water availability for expanding irrigated area. At the present era, the farmers have been using irrigation technique in rural areas through the manual control in which the farmers irrigate the land at the regular intervals, and also some rural areas are severely affected by droughts or floods. New technologies are coming for the assured supply of water but they are too expensive for the common farmer. One major reason of not adopting new technologies is unnecessary wastage of water in agriculture field due to unawareness of farmers about sufficient supply of water. Farmers usually control the electric motors observing the soil, crop and weather conditions by visiting the sites. These manually controlled irrigation systems cannot ensure a proper level of water in the site. Another reason is due to the lack of electricity and mismanagement in the manually controlling systems, sometimes their fields become dry and sometimes flooded with excess water. Automatic drip irrigation system allows farmers to apply the right amount of water at the right time, by turning the valves on and off. The GSM based wireless soil moisture sensor is designed using keil μvision 3 software into microcontroller for maximum of three sensors present in each field 466.4 sq m of tomato and 406 sq m of cluster bean and controls the water supply in the field to be irrigated using solenoid valve. The sensor present in each field stops the pump automatically through microcontroller when the field reaches to its field capacity and the motor will be switched on automatically when soil moisture reaches 70% of field capacity. The experimental fields with an area of 466.4 m 2 for tomato crop and 406 m 2 for cluster bean crops were selected at field irrigation laboratory, Department of Soil and Water Engineering, College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. The field was divided into 3 sub plots for tomato and cluster bean crops respectively to conduct experiments on drip irrigation with low cost wireless soil moisture sensor. The crop duration for tomato crop and cluster bean was 120 days (Dec 20th 2016 to March 3rd, 2017) and 90 days (March 24th to June 21st, 2017) respectively. The water was applied as per the crop water requirement calculated by CROPWAT in flood irrigation method, whereas water application was done based on operation of automatic wireless soil moisture sensor in both single row and paired row drip irrigation systems. The inline drip laterals were arranged with each dripper flow rate of 2 lph and spacing between drippers is 0.4 m. Field data was collected regularly to evaluate the performance of low cost soil moisture sensor based GSM and benefit cost ratio was found for different irrigation systems used for both tomato and cluster bean crops. The results revealed that the yield response was observed to be the best in wireless soil moisture sensor based irrigation with each row lateral spacing in tomato crop as 2.902 t ha-1 . The yield in tomato crop was very less as compared to normal yields. This is due to the reason that crop was affected by blight and tomato spotted wilt virus and final harvest was done about one month before the actual harvest date (April 8 th). Water applied in drip irrigation system using soil moisture sensor was found to be 410 mm instead of 490 mm in flood method for tomato and 16.39 % water saving was observed. In cluster bean, the yield was best in single row drip method as 7.5 t ha-1 . Water applied in drip irrigation system using wireless soil moisture sensor was found to be 410 mm instead of 507 mm in flood method and 19.13 % water saving was observed. Less water saving was observed because of crops are grown in sandy soils. The total cost of the GSM based low cost wireless soil moisture sensor was Rs 3424/- . Water use efficiency for tomato crop is highest in single row drip method with 7.15 kg/ha-mm followed by paired row drip and flood method as 6.25 and 2.24 kg/hamm respectively. Whereas in cluster bean, the water use efficiency was highest in single row drip method as 18.29 kg/ha-mm followed by paired row drip and flood method as 14.55 and 8.71 kg/ha-mm respectively. For tomato crop cultivation the total annual cost for the drip system was Rs.24000. The benefit cost ratio of 0.81 was recorded for single row followed by 0.79 for paired row and the least value of benefit cost ratio was recorded in flood as 0.53. For cluster bean crop cultivation the total annual cost for the drip system was Rs.20000. The benefit cost ratio of 2.12 was recorded for single row followed by 2.14 for paired row and the least value of benefit cost ratio was recorded in flood as 2.06. Keywords: GSM, wireless soil moisture sensor, microcontroller, keil μvision3, automatic drip irrigationThesisItem Open Access DESIGN DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF PUNCH PLANTER FOR MAIZE IN RICE FALLOWS(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) HARI BABU, B; JOSEPH REDDY, SMaize (Zea mays L.) is an important cereal food crop of the world with the highest production and productivity as compared to rice and wheat. It is the most versatile crop grown in more than 166 countries around the globe. During the year 2017-18, Andhra Pradesh ranked in 2nd in maize productivity in India.(Anonymous, 2018) Sowing is an important and time bound operation for crop cultivation. Early or delayed sowing adversely effects crop yield. The recommended seed rate has to be maintained by adopting adequate inter and intra row distance especially in maize crop. The crops grow uniformly if seeds are planted at uniform spacing. Thus, to obtain maximum yields, seeds should be planted at the desired spacing and in such a way all viable seeds germinate and emerge promptly To offer better seeding performance than conventional planters under no-till conditions a punch planter was developed which moves a minimum amount of soil and residue and offers precision in seed spacing. Minimal research has been carried to overcome limitations in punch planting concept, specifically making punches and simultaneously seed placement to obtain optimum population rate. The developed method of punch planting involves placing seeds into holes instead of furrows, which creates favorable environment for seed by providing good contact between seed and soil. The increase in use of mini tractors in all the states necessitated to design the technology for precision planting of maize to benefit the farming community. A mini tractor operated punch planter was designed and developed at College of Agricultural Engineering, Bapatla. It consisted of two major units with different components. The first unit was punching unit and second one seed placing unit. Punching unit draws power from tractor PTO and the main function is to punch holes in the field at a desired spacing and depth. The seed dropping unit is operated by punching rod and the main function is to drop single seed in the punches. The overall speed reduction ratios from engine to punch wheel were 22.61 and 15.53 for PTO lever position 1 and 2, respectively. In PTO lever position 1 and gear position 1, the forward speed of the tractor increased from 0.35 to 0.98 kmh-1 by increasing engine speed from 800 to 2400 rpm. In gear position 2 and 3, it was 0.80 to 1.53 kmh-1 and 1.69 to 3.28 kmh-1 , respectively. In PTO lever position 2 and gear position 1, the forward speed of the tractor increased from 0.35 to 0.99 kmh-1 by increasing the engine speed from 800 to 2400 rpm. In gear position 2 and 3 it was 0.85 to 1.68 kmh-1 and 1.75 to 3.50 kmh-1 , respectively. No effect of PTO lever position on forward speed of the tractor was observed. The mean punch spacings of 10, 16, 24, 35 and 53 cm were obtained in different gear and PTO lever positions. No significant effect on punch spacing in a particular gear and PTO lever position with forward speed of the tractor was observed. The punch spacings obtained in PTO lever position 1 and varying gear positions 1, 2 and 3 were 16, 24 and 53 cm, respectively. The punch spacings were obtained in PTO lever position 2 and varying gear positions 1,2 and 3 were 10, 16 and 35 cm, respectively. The required punch spacings can be obtained by selecting the gear and PTO lever position and the forward speed of the tractor can be maintained between 0.35 to 3.28 kmh-1. The seed miss index increased with the increase of punch planter speed in both punch spacings and also for two types of punch shapes. It was observed that in sandy clay loam soil, seed miss index was increased from 9.6 to 13.9% and 7.5 to 10.8% for 24 cm punch spacing and for type1 and type 2 punches, respectively, as the speed increased 0.8 to 1.7 kmh-1. In case of 16 cm punch spacing, it was observed that seed miss index was increased from 9.3 to 13.3% and 9.0 to 13.0% for type1 and type 2 punches, respectively, as the speed increased 0.8 to 1.7 kmh-1. The statistical analysis showed that there was a significant effect of interaction forward speed & type of punch and forward speed & punch spacing on index in both sandy clay loam and clay soil with rice fallow. decreased with the increase of punch planter speed in both punch spacings and also for two types of punches. I from 84.9 to 83.4% and 85.8 to 84.9% for 24 cm punch spacing and for type1 and type 2 punches, respectively, as spacing, it was observed that quality of feed index was decreased fro and 84.3 to 83.7% for type1 and type 2 punches respectively The theoretical field capacity was 0.1, 0.16 and 0.20 hah h-1 forward speed of operation efficiency were observed forward speeds of 0.8, 1.3 and 1.7 kmh obtained as 1.20, 1.48 and 2.14 Lh respectively. The total fixed cost with mini tractor and punch planter w 233.0/-, 18.0/- per hour with mini tractor was found to be and 66.0% in terms of manpower, time of operation and cost of operation due to use of punch planter than traditional manual sowing. Keywords: Punch planting emergence, field efficiency, operating cost. The quality of feed index In sandy clay loam soils, quality of feed index was decreased , speed increases from 0.8 to 1.7 kmh-1. For 16 cm punch from 84.0 to 83.1% respectively. hah-1 at 0.8, 1.3 and 1.7 km operations, respectively. The effective field capacity served to be 0.07, 0.12 and 0.15 hah-1 and 77.33, 74.25 and 75.33% at kmh-1, respectively. The fuel consumption was Lh-1 at operating speeds of 0.8, 1.3 and 1.7 kmh costs of sowing maize with developed prototype punch planter were 53.0/- and 35.0/- and variable cost hour, respectively. The total operating cost of the 339/- per hour. There was a saving of 50%, 58.3% % unch planting, seed dropping performance, reduction ratio, interactions seed multiple m he and field kmh-1, costs punch planter operation, respectively seedlingsThesisItem Open Access DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF CENTRIFUGAL CASHEW NUT SHELLER(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, 2023-05-11) DIVYA, BANDARU; PRASAD, B.V.SCashew tree (Anacardium occidentale L.) is the multipurpose crop native to Brazil. Global production of raw cashew nut is 3.9 metric tons during the year 2018- 2019. Cashew kernel, queen of the nut kernels, is an edible part, which is nutritious, containing fat (46% to 47%, of which 87% is unsaturated fatty acid), protein (18% to 21%) and carbohydrates (29% to 31%). It is widely cultivated as food, medicine, and source of income in many countries, mainly in Asia, Africa and South America. Shelling of cashew nut is the vital and difficult unit operation due to its irregular shape and hard shell. Traditional method of cracking the roasted cashew nuts is done manually, using harmer or knife cutter is labor-intensive, slow and tedious, besides, most mechanical crackers do not give satisfactory kernel output in terms of whole kernels percentage. This process has some health implications due to corrosive effect of cashew nut shell liquid (CNSL) on skin of workers. Physical properties which are relevant to sheller design like orthogonal dimensions, 1000 nuts weight, bulk density, particle density, angle of repose, coefficient of static friction on four different surfaces and hardness of cashew nuts were determined for raw, roasted and steam cooked cashew nuts. Based on these values, the different components of a centrifugal sheller were designed and fabricated. Developed centrifugal cashew nut sheller consisted of hopper, frame, outer housing, shield, impeller, shaft and electric motor. Micro-controlled load cell was used for determination of hitting force. Performance of developed centrifugal cashew nut sheller was carried out at four different speeds for roasted cashew nuts (1950, 2100, 2250 and 2400 rpm), and steam cooked cashew nuts (2200, 2400, 2600 and 2800 rpm) by placing the shield at four different inclinations viz., 0°, 15°, 30° and 45°. In Response surface methodology, custom design was used to optimize the response parameters viz., throughput, shelling efficiency, whole kernel recovery, broken kernel recovery, unshelled percentage and hitting force. Obtained optimized conditions for roasted cashew nuts were operating impeller speed of 2300 rpm and shield inclination of 45° with the throughput, shelling efficiency, whole kernel recovery, broken kernel recovery, unshelled percentage and hitting force as 24.824 kg.h -1 , 89.46%, 67.72%, 32.72%, 10.54% and 162.857 N, respectively. Optimized conditions for the steam cooked cashew nut were impeller speed of 2460 rpm and inclination of 18° . Under these conditions, throughput, shelling efficiency, whole kernel recovery, broken kernel recovery, unshelled percentage and hitting force were 23.830 kg.h -1 , 88.816%, 60.762%, 39.238%, 11.184% and 183.510 N, respectively. Keywords: Engineering properties, Roasted cashew nut, Shelling efficiency, Steam cooked cashew nut, Throughput, Whole kernel recovery.ThesisItem Open Access DESIGN, DEVELOPMENT AND PERFORMANCE EVALUATION OF ELECTRIC VACUUM FRYING SYSTEM(ACHARYA NG RANGA AGRICULTURAL UNIVERSITY, 2023-05-11) SATHISH, AKKI; PRASAD, B.V.S.sectors for modern consumers with a special desire for fried snack foods. Fried products are liked by all age groups and play an important role in consumer diets because of their unique flavour and texture. Frying can improve the sensory quality of food by the formation of aroma, producing attractive colour and better crispness. Frying also inactivates enzymes, reduces the moisture content and micro-organism in foods. Frying is a fast heating and uniform cooking method compared to other methods. Oil uptake takes place during frying and consumption of oil poses significant health problems such as coronary heart diseases, cancer, diabetes, and hypertension. The health concerns of modern consumers demand healthy and tasty snack products with less oil content. In this context, investigation on processing technologies focusing on high-quality fried products with less oil is the need of the hour. Vacuum frying is a promising and alternative technology to enhance the quality of fried food products due to the reduced oxidation, reduced frying temperatures and much shorter processing times compared to atmospheric frying. Vacuum frying is one of the frying methods that take place at below atmospheric pressures. Vacuum frying requires specialized equipment and the design is very sophisticated. A vacuum fryer was designed and fabricated with a 1 mm thick SS-316 to operate at 210 °C under 680 mm Hg vacuum level based on ASME procedures. The developed vacuum frying system was evaluated using wheat chips at different atmospheric and vacuum frying conditions. The atmospheric frying was done at different frying temperatures (130, 150, 170 and 190 °C) and various frying times (3, 4.5, 6 and 7.5 min). Vacuum frying process parameters was done using the Box-Behnken experimental design with the three independent variables viz., frying temperature (130, 145 and 160 °C), vacuum level (400, 500 and 600 mm Hg), and frying time (3, 4.5 and 6 min). The prepared products at different vacuum frying and atmospheric frying conditions were subjected to quality analysis and sensory evaluation. vi Frying temperature had shown a significant (p<0.05) effect on all the quality attributes of atmospheric and vacuum fried wheat chips. As frying temperature increases the moisture content of both atmospheric and vacuum fried wheat chips decreased. The oil content of wheat chips increased with increasing frying temperature and time during both atmospheric and vacuum frying and decreased with increasing vacuum level in vacuum frying. The hardness of atmospheric fried wheat chips was higher compared to vacuum fried wheat chips. Colour difference values of atmospheric fried wheat chips decreased with increasing frying temperature and time. Optimum processing conditions for the development of atmospheric fried chips were found as frying temperature of 156.6 °C and time of 3 min. Atmospheric fried wheat chips had an average moisture content of 3.04% (d.b.). The oil content was found to be 24.26% (d.b.). The volume expansion, hardness and colour (ΔE) values of the chips were 837.17 mm3, 5.46 N and 23.65, respectively. Optimum processing conditions for the development of vacuum fried wheat chips were found as the frying temperature of 160 °C, vacuum level of 560.6 mm Hg and time of 5.3 min. Vacuum frying produced high quality fried wheat chips compared to atmospheric frying. The vacuum fried wheat chips had an average moisture content of 3.73% (d.b.) and oil content was found to be 18.18% (d.b.) which is good for health and does not adversely affect the storage period. Vacuum fried wheat chips had good hardness value of 3.97 N, which indicated the better crispiness of the fried product. The colour of vacuum fried wheat chips was far better than atmospheric fried wheat chips. The vacuum fried wheat chips had good acceptance among selected panellists and better quality compared to atmospheric fried wheat chips. So, developed electric vacuum frying system producing high quality fried chips compared to atmospheric frying. Keywords: Wheat based snacks; vacuum technology; optimization; stress analysis; fried snacks