Thumbnail Image

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.

Browse

20224
Reset filters
Subject: Processing and Food Engineering × End date: 2022 × Start date: 2022 × Type: Thesis ×
Reset filters

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Use of biopolymer-based coating material for enhancing the shelf life of sugarcane jaggery
    (DRPCAU, PUSA, 2022) Pandey, Vivek; Amitabh, Anupam
    India is the world‟s second largest producer of sugarcane after Brazil which is used for producing jaggery, but due to its hygroscopic nature, the storage of jaggery becomes one of the major problems in India. The present study was carried out to use biopolymer material coating to enhance shelf life of jaggery. The coating solution was prepared using zein (0.1-8%) as base material with polyethylene glycol (0.1-5%) as plasticizer and sodium tripolyphosphate (0.1-1%) as crosslinker. RSM based three factor three level Box-Behnken experimental design was used to optimize the response variables in terms of Moisture absorption, Puncture strength, Opacity, Total colour difference, Whiteness index and Antimicrobial activity. The optimum solution was obtained at 4.968% zein, 0.1% PEG and 0.655% STPP. Furthermore, storage study of coated and uncoated jaggery was performed for a period of 150 days. The moisture content, water activity, reducing sugar, total colour difference and total plate count increased throughout the storage period in both the jaggery samples (coated and uncoated) but the increment was more significant in uncoated jaggery compared to coated jaggery. Hardness reduced during the storage period with the greater reduction in uncoated jaggery sample compared to coated one. The sensory results of coated and uncoated jaggery were insignificantly different at the start of storage, showing no masking effect of coating on sensorial attributes. The overall study showed better stability of jaggery with biopolymer coating, which gives a scope of commercialization of the technology.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of process technology for preparation of watermelon jaggery
    (2022) HANMANT, PURANIK PRATIKSHA; Kumar, Vishal
    Watermelon is a nutritious alternative to energy drinks as it is a natural source of phenolic antioxidants; amino acid, carotenoid lycopene, vitamin A, potassium and magnesium. Watermelon biomass composed of four main components - flesh, peel, rind and seed. About one-third of the watermelon weight is comprised by its rind. Due to the rind's lack of sweetness, it is discarded as waste. Large quantities of watermelons are lost due to poor post-harvest techniques a huge volume of watermelons get damaged, spoilt, discarded and left on field itself by cultivars due to its low in brix value which fetches a very low price in market. The fruit can be used at this point of time for preparing the value added products from the watermelon which will fetch higher income to the farmers. Watermelon juice possesses similar chemical properties to that of sugarcane juice and possibility of preparation of jaggery from watermelon need was explored. The process of preparation of watermelon jaggery was studied by the Response Surface Methodology (RSM) using Box-Behnken Design. In this design, the low and high levels of the process variables were 10.00 and 15.00 % for rind content; 5 to 10 % (w/w) for binding agent; 7.5 -12.5 %w/w for sweetening agent, respectively. Responses studied comprised jaggery processing time, jaggery yield, moisture content, TSS pH, reducing sugar, non-reducing sugar, colour index, hardness and overall acceptability. The optimum conditions (desirability of 0.738) obtained by numerical optimization were of rind content 14.33 % (w/w), binding agent 9.86 % (w/w) and sweetening agent 12.50 %( w/w) to achieve minimum jaggery processing time, moisture content, reducing sugar and colour index and maximum jaggery yield TSS, pH, non-reducing sugar, hardness and overall acceptability. Corresponding to the optimum conditions, optimized yield as jaggery yield- 6.13 %, jaggery processing time- 236.54 minutes, moisture content- 25.11 (%, w.b.), TSS (ºBrix)-75.55, pH- 6.01, reducing sugar- 2.07%, non-reducing sugar- 1.71 %, colour- 42.42, hardness- 35.32 N, overall acceptability- 8.16. The optimised watermelon jaggery was acceptable for consumption during 60 days storage period w.r.t. coliform and total plate count.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Study of Osmo-Dehydration of Mahua Flowers (Madhuca Indica)
    (DRPCAU, PUSA, 2022) Kavya, Pendram; Shrivastava, Mukesh
    Mahua flowers are underutilized forest produce which has a very high potential for nutritional and economic benefit for the people. There is a wide scope of its utilization in effective way using engineering interventions. Hence, the present research was executed to study an important processing aspect of Mahua flowers i.e. osmotic dehydration. The process of osmosis was carried out by employing BBD experimental design with four independent variables having three levels each which included sugar concentration (SG) – 45, 55 and 65%; solution temperature (ST) – 40, 45, 50°C; immersion time (IT) - 60, 120 and 180 min and solution to product ratio (SPR) - 3:1, 4:1 and 5:1. The impact of these independent variables on three dependent variables - weight reduction (WR%), solute gain (SG%) and water loss (WL%) of osmo-dehydrated commodities was studied with 29 experimental design variations. The results were analysed using ANOVA and a second order polynomial model was fitted to the data. The optimization was done using RSM, which gave an optimal solution as sugar concentration (SC)-59.31%, solution temperature (ST)- 49.39°C, immersion time (IT)-153.85 min and solution to product ratio (SPR)-3.32 :1 in order to obtain optimized yield of water loss (WL)-18.32%, solute gain (SG)-2.99%, and weight reduction (WR)- 15.97% with desirability value 1.0. Furthermore, three distinct drying air temperatures (50, 60 and 70°C) were employed in a laboratory model tray dryer to conduct drying investigations on raw fresh, blanched and osmosed Mahua flowers. On the basis of recorded data of weight loss with elapsed drying time, drying rate and moisture content reduction were evaluated. Drying of Osmosed Mahua flowers samples at 70°C drying air temperature resulted in shorter drying time as compared to raw fresh and blanched samples. The minimum time for drying was achieved by osmosed Mahua flowers at 70°C and it attained a final moisture content of 8.30%. The overall variation in bulk density was 0.414 – 0.467(g/cm3), in true density was 1.060 -1.435(g/cm3) and porosity was 0.582 -0.689 for different Mahua samples after drying. Osmo-dehydrated mahua flowers at 60°C showed the greatest hardness/peak force of 12.60 N with 0.580 second fracture time. the osmosed Mahua flowers dehydrated at 60°C resulted as the best acceptable product with overall acceptability of 6.93 with best rehydration characteristics. Good quality raisin like product could be obtained from drying of Mahua flowers by using osmotic dehydration technique followed by hot air tray drying at 60oC.
  • Thumbnail Image
    ThesisItemOpen Access
    Development of Value Added Product (Juice) from Pomelo (Citrus grandis Linn.)
    (DRPCAU, PUSA, 2022) Verma, Anshul Kumar; Kumar, Devendra
    India is the second largest producer of fruits still lacks behind in processing and post-harvest management. Pomelo is one of the majorly grown fruits in North Bihar but its bitter taste creates a problematic condition in processing. The present investigation was carried out for the development of value-added products from pomelo by blending it with sweet orange. Pomelo juice was extracted and the study of biochemical properties was conducted. Ready to serve blended drinks were prepared by mixing it with sweet orange in 3 different proportions which was compared with RTS of pomelo and orange. The juice and prepared RTS product were analysed for changes in biochemical properties at 30 days intervals for a duration of 90 days. The RTS drinks were also analysed for microbial count. The prepared juice was also subjected to organoleptic evaluation after product preparation. It was observed that the TSS, pH, total and reducing sugar were found to be increasing whereas vitamin C, titrable acidity, and non-reducing sugar were found to be decreasing throughout the storage period. Microbial load of the juice was also found to be within limits for the juice to be consumed after 90 days. Sensory evaluation by fuzzy logic method of RTS blended drinks revealed that the best product was pure orange juice followed by blended juice in the ratio of 60:40 of pomelo and sweet orange respectively.