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Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa

In the imperial Gazetteer of India 1878, Pusa was recorded as a government estate of about 1350 acres in Darbhanba. It was acquired by East India Company for running a stud farm to supply better breed of horses mainly for the army. Frequent incidence of glanders disease (swelling of glands), mostly affecting the valuable imported bloodstock made the civil veterinary department to shift the entire stock out of Pusa. A British tobacco concern Beg Sutherland & co. got the estate on lease but it also left in 1897 abandoning the government estate of Pusa. Lord Mayo, The Viceroy and Governor General, had been repeatedly trying to get through his proposal for setting up a directorate general of Agriculture that would take care of the soil and its productivity, formulate newer techniques of cultivation, improve the quality of seeds and livestock and also arrange for imparting agricultural education. The government of India had invited a British expert. Dr. J. A. Voelcker who had submitted as report on the development of Indian agriculture. As a follow-up action, three experts in different fields were appointed for the first time during 1885 to 1895 namely, agricultural chemist (Dr. J. W. Leafer), cryptogamic botanist (Dr. R. A. Butler) and entomologist (Dr. H. Maxwell Lefroy) with headquarters at Dehradun (U.P.) in the forest Research Institute complex. Surprisingly, until now Pusa, which was destined to become the centre of agricultural revolution in the country, was lying as before an abandoned government estate. In 1898. Lord Curzon took over as the viceroy. A widely traveled person and an administrator, he salvaged out the earlier proposal and got London’s approval for the appointment of the inspector General of Agriculture to which the first incumbent Mr. J. Mollison (Dy. Director of Agriculture, Bombay) joined in 1901 with headquarters at Nagpur The then government of Bengal had mooted in 1902 a proposal to the centre for setting up a model cattle farm for improving the dilapidated condition of the livestock at Pusa estate where plenty of land, water and feed would be available, and with Mr. Mollison’s support this was accepted in principle. Around Pusa, there were many British planters and also an indigo research centre Dalsing Sarai (near Pusa). Mr. Mollison’s visits to this mini British kingdom and his strong recommendations. In favour of Pusa as the most ideal place for the Bengal government project obviously caught the attention for the viceroy.

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20202
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Subject: Food Technology × Start date: 1980 ×
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Osmotic dehydration of mushroom
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Harshvardhani, Baddam; Sharma, P.D.
    Fresh and good quality Button mushrooms were procured from the Mushroom Research Unit Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, and were washed thoroughly under running water and followed by cutting into slices of 5 mm thickness before cutting ends. Osmotic dehydration experiments were conducted by employing CCR design for three independent variables at five levels [Salt Concentration (SC) - 10, 15, 20, 25, 30 %; Solution Temperature (ST) - 45, 50, 55, 60, 65 oC; Immersion Time (IT) - 60, 120, 180, 240, 300 min.]. A total 20 combinations of these independent variables were formed to see their effect on different dependent variables like Water Loss (WL, %), Solute Gain (SG, %) and Weight Reduction (WR %) of osmo-dehydrated product. Out of total 20 experiments, the best combination was selected on the basis of optimization by Response Surface Methodology. Second order multiple regression equations were developed for all the dependent variables to know the effect of independent variables. Osmotic dehydration treatment facilitates better results with optimum solution of SC-10.21 %, ST- 50℃ and IT - 120 minutes with an optimized yield as WL- 52.585 %, SG- 5.946 % and WR of osmo-dehydrated sample- 47.023 % with desirability 0.878. A laboratory model tray dryer was used for drying of Button Mushroom. Three different samples of Button Mushroom Slices viz. untreated, blanched and optimized osmosed samples were taken for drying experiment at each level of drying air temperature (50, 60 and 70oC). Drying time, drying rate and moisture reduction were calculated later on the basis of observed data. Drying of osmosed Button Mushroom slices at 70oC drying air temperature provided shortest drying time to produce best quality dried product as compared to blanched and untreated Button Mushroom samples. The drying time of osmosed sample was reduced to 480 minutes as compared to 600 and 660 minutes taken by blanched and untreated button mushroom samples. The dehydrated and dried button mushroom slices were taken for quality evaluation by sensory method, rehydration and proximate composition analysis. The above osmotically dehydrated button mushroom samples showed best rehydration characteristics like Rehydration ratio of 4.98 and coefficient of rehydration of 0.493 to yield good quality rehydrated sample which can be preserved and used during off-season. Key Words: Button Mushroom, Osmotic dehydration, CCR Design, Response Surface Methodology, Salt concentration, Solution temperature, Immersion time, Water loss, Salt gain, Drying air temperature, Drying rate, Quality evaluation, Rehydration, Sensory evaluation, Proximate composition analysis.
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    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of electrically heated dryer for turmeric
    (DRPCAU, Pusa, 2020) Tiwari, Diwakar; Srivastava, Mukesh
    An electrically heated dryer was designed and fabricated for turmeric drying for 25 kg capacity with five drying trays. The fabricated dryer has the dimensions of drying chamber as 102 × 53 × 57 cm, tray-100 × 50 × 5 cm and stand-102 × 53 × 70 cm. The procured turmeric lot was thoroughly cleaned, washed and trimmed to get rhizomes which were boiled and tempered in laboratory autoclave for total 220 minutes. After determining initial moisture content (82.19 % w.b.), turmeric rhizomes were evenly spread on five drying trays (5 kg in each tray) and were put inside the preheated dryer. The data were recorded for weight reduction in samples from each tray at prefixed time interval. Other observations included the inlet and outlet temperature of drying air, dryer temperature and RH at bottom tray 1 and top tray 5, ambient temperature and RH, air velocity and energy consumed during entire period of experiment. Drying was continued till three consecutive weights were recorded as almost same indicating the samples had reached at their equilibrium in different trays. Weight reduction data was used to calculate moisture content in wet and dry basis and drying rate. The performance of the dryer was evaluated on the basis of moisture reduction, drying rate, time taken for drying, heat utilization factor and dryer efficiency. Some important physical properties like size, shape, surface area & volume, bulk density, true density, porosity were also determined for fresh, boiled and dried turmeric rhizomes. The turmeric rhizomes were dried from initial moisture content of 82.19 % (w.b.) to final moisture content in the range of 8.22% in 1980 minutes, 10.07% in 2280 minutes, 12.96% in 2580 minutes,13.98% in 2820 minutes, 15.68% in 3120 minutes for tray 1, tray 2, tray3 ,tray4 and tray 5 respectively. Overall drying rate during the process varied from 0.172 × 10-3 to 0.086 × 10-3 kgW /kg.dm.h. The dryer had an average HUF of 0.842 during turmeric drying with drying efficiency of 33.483%. The total moisture content reduction (from initial to final moisture content) was found 73.97, 72.12, 69.23, 68.20 and 66.51(%w.b.) in tray1, tray2, tray3, tray4 and tray5 in 1980, 2280, 2580, 2820, and 3120 minutes respectively. During full load condition, the average temperature in the drying chamber was 56.45°C, which is near to the optimum temperature required for drying of turmeric rhizomes. It can be concluded that the developed system is suitable for drying of 25 kg/batch turmeric for the farming community with good quality.