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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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ThesisItem Open Access Storage behaviour of Green Gram (Vigna radiata) in Hermetic and other types of Storage Bags.(Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2017) Kumari, Asha; Shrivastava, M.Green gram (Vigna radiate) grains were procured from local market, cleaned and graded by two screen cleaner-cum-grader. Large sized grains were divided in three sub-lots of 70 kg each to prepare experimental lots of three different initial moisture contents (12.32, 14.04, 16.04 % w.b.). Storage study was conducted by storing 10 kg green gram grains in 4 types of bags (jute, plastic, polythene, hermetic) with and without treatment (aluminium phosphide tablets) at 3 different initial moisture contents. Total 21 such bags were kept in laboratory for 33 weeks duration during September, 2016 to April, 2017. Daily observation of ambient temperature and relative humidity was taken throughout the study period. Weekly observations of five dependent quality parameters - water activity, 1000 grain weight, moisture content, germination and grain damage were recorded for 27(jute bags) to 33 weeks (hermetic bags). All standard methods/instruments were used to measure/determine dependent parameters. It was observed that water activity, moisture content, and grain damage goes on increasing with increasing storage duration, while 1000 grain weight and germination decreased with advancement of storage duration across all 21 experimental combinations. The overall variation range for water activity was 0.551 - 0.989, for 1000 grain weight was 49.04 - 33.20 g, for moisture content was 12.32 – 25.67 % w.b., for germination was 81.7 to 1.3 %, and for grain damage was 2.33 to 78.67 %. Variation was more in case of untreated samples as compared to treated samples. Hermetic bags stored green gram was found better in all quality parameters even after 33 weeks of storage duration. On the contrary, green gram stored in jute bags got damaged with heavy infestation of pulse beetle in 27 weeks of storage duration. Statistical analysis through UNIANOVA revealed that initial moisture content emerged as most significant independent variable to affect 1000 grain weight, moisture content, germination and grain damage with exception of water activity which was affected by treatment the most. The interaction of bags*imc affected 1000 grain weight, germination and grain damage, while the interaction of bags*trt and trt*imc affected water activity and moisture content respectively. Hence the hermetic bag could be recommended safely for storing green gram for longer duration without affecting its quality.ThesisItem Open Access Design, Development and Evaluation of Continuous type Ohmic Heating Unit for Liquid Foods(Dr. Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2016) Kumar, Chandan; Kumar, VishalThe concept of ohmic heating obeys Ohm’s law (V = IR). The passage of electric current through an electrically conductive food material results in heat generation due to the electrical resistance of the foods on basis of joule’s law [H= I2Rt = .A continuous type ohmic heating unit was designed for volumetric/processing capacity of 10±5 l/s and which can be able to elevate the temperature up to 25±5 0C. Concentric tubes (2 Nos) with inner tube diameter 5 cm; outer pipe 7.5 cm and length 1.25 m was selected based on preliminary trials (Joule’s law and Ohms law) for considering various piping combinations to get the desired capacity and elevated temperature. The selected pipe sizing provided a 1.25 cm gap between the pipes for the liquid flow. The thickness of the two stainless steel pipes were calculated using Lame’s stress analysis and it was found that pipe thickness of 1.15 mm is sufficient against the pressure exerted by liquid food. The velocity head loss was determined using Darcy-Weisbach equation and Bernoulli’s law. The support frame was designed considering the various loads at the different section in the frame, shear force acting and the bending moments. All the sections of the frame including the legs were fabricated using angle iron plates 37.5 mm width and 2.25 mm thickness. The designed and fabricated ohmic heating section was tested for its performance in batch mode and continuous mode at different potential difference (25, 30 and 35 V). The experiments were done in triplicate. The unit was tested for three liquid foods i.e. sugarcane juices, milk and watermelon juice at a voltages 25, 30 and 35 V and temperature increase was measured at every three minute interval at 3, 6 and 9 minutes using the thermocouples. The ohmic heating was evaluated for its performance in continuous mode on sugarcane juice, milk and watermelon juice at frequency (A) of alternating current at 40, 45 and 60 Hz; applied voltage (B) at 25, 30 and 35 Volts and volumetric flows rate (C) at 12, 18 and 24 l/h. Experiments were performed for each liquid food as per the experimental combination of Behnken design. All the observed data from 17 combinations of Box Behnken design were used to calculate the effect of different dependent parameters for ohmic heating of liquid foods by developing multiple regression polynomial equations.. For ohmic heating of sugarcane juice in continuous mode, the optimized process conditions emerged out as frequency (A) – 45 Hz, applied voltage (B) – 31.1 V and flow rate (C) – 12 l/h in order to obtain optimized yield as temperature (T) – 19.840C; and system performance coefficient (SPC)-67.12 % with desirability of 0.699. For ohmic heating of milk juice in continuous mode, the optimized process conditions emerged out frequency (A) – 38.75 Hz, applied voltage (B) – 30 V and flow rate (C) – 24 l/h in order to obtain optimized yield as temperature (T) – 25.160C; ; and system performance coefficient (SPC)-89.16 % with desirability of 0.967. For ohmic heating of watermelon juice in continuous mode, the optimized process conditions emerged out as frequency (A) – 42 hertz, applied voltage (B) – 30 V and flow rate (C) –24 l/h in order to obtain optimized yield as temperature (T) – 31.540C; ; and system performance coefficient (SPC)- 76.84 % with desirability of 0.825.ThesisItem Open Access Estimation of groundwater recharge by water budget method in conjuction with water table fluctuation method.(Rajendra Agriculrural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2015) Kumar, Avinash; Jain, S. K.Estimation of groundwater is an effective tool for proper planned and optimal utilization of water resources in the context of future requirement. Our main purpose for the estimation of groundwater in Patna and Gaya district is to make a complete assessment of groundwater resources and produce information that can be incorporated for future requirement. The study was undertaken based on the recommendation of groundwater estimation committee, 1997 (GEC-97). Methodology used the estimation of annual groundwater recharge from rainfall and other sources including irrigation, water bodies and artificial recharge, determination of present status of groundwater utilization and categorization of assessment units based on the level of groundwater utilization and long- term water level trend. Water level fluctuation techniques and empirical norms were used for recharge estimation. The data collected for investigation were water table fluctuation, rainfall, cropping pattern, number of groundwater structures, geographical area, groundwater draft, ponds area etc. The study reveals that for Patna and Gaya district the total annual groundwater recharge is 123796.4 ha-m and 107866 ha-m, the net annual groundwater draft for all uses is 57933.2 ha-m and 54390.6 ha-m, the net groundwater available for future irrigation development is 59673.2 ha-m and 48082.1 ha-m respectively. The stage of groundwater development is 49.3% for Patna district and 53%for Gaya district which fall in safe categories for both districts. The surplus of groundwater available for future agriculture is 12583.7 ha-m and 7173 ha-m and the additional energy requirement for abstraction of surplus of groundwater available for future agriculture is 4.80 × 106 KWh and 1.55 × 106 KWh for Patna and Gaya district respectively.ThesisItem Open Access Evaluation of SCS Curve Number Models(Rajendra Agriculrural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Azad, Amarnath; Sahu, R. K.The importance of modelling of event-based rainfall-runoff process is well known among the hydrologists. One of the popular method to estimate the volume of direct surface runoff for a given rainfall event is the Soil Conservation Service Curve number (SCS-CN) method. However, the past research endeavors suggested a need for further improvement, overhauling or replacement of the method. Therefore, many modifications of the method were presented in the recent past. Very recently, an improved version of SCS-CN model called as SME model was reported incorporating hydrological more sound procedure for accounting antecedent moisture in the MS model which is an important modified version of the SCS-CN model. The present study evaluates the performances of the SME model, the MS model and the original SCS-CN model for the rainfall-runoff datasets of the selected four watersheds of Jharkhand (India). The model parameters were estimated by using the non-linear Marquardt algorithm of constrained least squares. The sensitivity analysis of the SCS-CN models for assessment of sensitivity of various parameters of the models was conducted by using method of perturbation. All the three models are evaluated on the basis of standard error (SE), root mean square error (RMSE), and normalized root mean square error (NRMSE). The lower is the SE or RMSE or NRMSE, the better is the model performance, and vice-versa. The results of the application of the models to the selected watersheds indicated that for MS model and SME model, the optimum value of λ in all the four watersheds is zero. The optimum values of S for MS model for Adda-1, Chitankhari, Indra and Karimati watersheds are found to be 266.78, 256.61, 194.47 and 233.72 mm respectively while the optimum values of S0 for SME model are found to be 194.39, 329.60, 214.51 and 259.90 mm respectively. The original SCS-CN model is found to be very much sensitive to model parameter CN and hence utmost care is needed to determine the CN. The MS model is more sensitive to the parameter CN (or S) than the parameter λ. The SME model is most sensitive to the parameter CN (corresponding to S0) followed by β while it is least sensitive to the parameter λ. Further, the MS and the SME models are less sensitive to CN as compared to original SCS-CN model. The MS model and the SME model perform equally well and much better than the original SCS-CN model (with λ=0.2 or 0.3). Moreover, the MS model and the SME model show consistent performance compared to the original SCS-CN model. As the SME model has theoretically many advantages over the MS model and the duo perform equally well, the SME model is suggested for the practical applications.ThesisItem Open Access Comparative study of drip and surface irrigation methods on potato (Solanum tuberosum) crop.(Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Hussain, Mairaj; Gupta, S. P.An investigation was carried out to evaluate the comparative study of drip and surface irrigation methods on potato (solenum tuberosum) crop. The field experiment was conducted for potato crop var. Kufari Ashoka during Rabi season of 2012-13 at the research form of water management plot of south pangabri upland adjoining to Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa Farm. The experiment was designed as per Randomized Block Design (RBD) with three replications. The irrigation treatments consist of drip irrigation at operating pressure of 0.4 kg/cm2 (I1), 0.6 kg/cm2 (I2), 0.8 kg/cm2 (I3), 1.0 kg/cm2 (I4), 1.2 kg/cm2 (I5) and furrow irrigation (I6). The water applied during the season was maximum (180 mm) in I6, while the minimum water used in I1. The maximum water use efficiency (329.12 kg/ha-mm) was recorded in treatment I5. Whereas, the minimum value (118.76 kg/ha-mm) was observed under I6 treatment. The percent saving of water over furrow irrigation was maximum (47.29%) in treatment I5. The maximum emission uniformity (90.8%) was found in treatment I5 with coefficient of manufacturing variation (0.09). while minimum (80.88%) emission uniformity was found in treatment I1 with coefficient of manufacturing variation 0.12. All the growth parameters like plant height, no. Of leaves, and leaf area index were significantly influenced by irrigation treatments. The treatment I5 (1.2 kg/cm2) was found significantly superior to I1, I2, I3 and I6 But statistically at par with I4. Yield of tuber was found maximum (312.22 q/ha) in treatment I5. Yield attributes like no of tuber per plant, size of tuber per plant, fresh tuber weight per plant were significantly influenced by treatment and the maximum value was obtained in treatment I5. Gross return and net return were significantly higher in treatment I5 and also benefit: cost ratio was maximum (2.88) in treatment I5. On the basis of analysis of the data, it can be concluded that the potato crop irrigated with drip irrigation with 1.2 kg/cm2 operating pressure system given highest value of net return. So it would be more beneficial in comparison to surface irrigation method.ThesisItem Open Access Development of Process Technology for Preparation of Maize- Finger millet-Bengal gram Extrudates(Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2014) Raman, Akanksha; Sharma, P. D.Extrusion cooking process is a high temperature and short time process in which moist, soft food material is fed to the extruder for desired temperature, pressure, and residence time. Finger millet being a “nutria-cereal” was used to develop Ready-To-Eat (RTE) snack food through extrusion cooking. Composite mixes were prepared using Maize flour, finger millet flour and Bengal gram flour in varying proportions. Extrusion cooking was carried out using a Twin Screw Extruder. Extrusion cooking experiments were conducted employing CCRD for four independent variables with five level each (feed proportion – 60:10:30, 60:12.5:27.5, 60:15:25, 60:17.5:22.5, 60:20:20; feed rate – 9, 10, 11, 19, 13 kg/h; screw speed- 250, 275, 300, 325. 350 rpm; Barrel temperature 100, 110, 120, 130, 140oC ). A total 30 combinations of these independent variables were formed to see the effect on different dependent variable like Expansion ratio. Bulk density (kg/h), Water activity (Aw), Water absorption index, Total colour index, Hardness (N) and Overall acceptability. During experiments the best combination was generated on the basis of optimization by response surface methodology (Liang et al., 2012). Second order multiple regression equations were developed for all the dependent variables which were optimized using response surface methodology. The best product was prepared at optimum solution such as feed proportion- 60:20:20 (60% maize, 20% finger millet, 20% Bengal gram), Feed rate - 9 kg/h, Screw speed - 250 rpm and Barrel temperature - 120o C , produced the most acceptable extrudates.. The prepared optimized extrudates also have well balanced acceptable range of the nutrition (total carbohydrate-72.62%, Protein- 11.90%, fat- 8.28%, fibre- 3.12% and ash- 1.23% ).The optimized extrudates can be stored for three months in ziploc polyethene ( 0.02µm gauge size ) without any deterioration in the organoleptic characteristics.ThesisItem Open Access Impact of Different Tillage Practices on Soil Moisture Variation and Physical properties of Soil In North Bihar(Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2013) Kumari, Sweta; Jain, S. K.A field experiment entitled "Impact of different Tillage Practices on soil Moisture Variation and Physical Properties of Soil in North Bihar" was conducted at the research farm of Rajendra Agricultural University, Bihar, Pusa (Samastipur) during rabi season of 2011-12 in randomized block design with eight treatment combinations replicated thrice to evaluate the effect of various conservation tillage treatments on the soil physical properties and yield of wheat crop. The selected treatments were - puddled transplanted rice + conventional tillage wheat, puddled transplanted rice + zero tillage wheat, rice and wheat on permanent beds with crop residue, zero tillage rice + conventional tillage wheat, zero tillage rice + zero tillage wheat without crop residue, zero tillage rice + zero tillage wheat with crop residue, unpuddled transplanted rice + zero tillage wheat and zero tillage rice with brown manuring + zero tillage wheat. The soil of the experimental plot was sandy loam, calcareous with pH value 8.4 and poor in fertility. The effect of tillage treatments on the productivity of wheat crop and soil properties (soil moisture content, bulk density and infiltration characteristics) during wheat growth in rice – wheat cropping system were investigated. The results indicated that the treatment of rice and wheat on permanent beds with crop residue significantly influenced the soil moisture content throughout the root zone of the crop, bulk density of the soil, infiltration rate and ultimately the yield of the crop. The highest grain yield (60.46 q/ha) was recorded under this treatment.ThesisItem Open Access Fertigation Effect on Carnation(Dianthus caryophylus L.) under Polyhouse(Rajendra Agricultural University, Pusa (Samastipur), 2013) Kumar, Sunil; Suresh, R.In present study “Fertigation Effect on Carnation(Dianthus caryophylus L.) under Polyhouse, an attempt has been made to explore the feasibility of carnation cultivation under greenhouse condition. The experiment was laid under Split Plot Design (SPD) with twelve (12) treatments, i.e., 3 main treatments on variety, namely; V1: Loris; V2: Pingu & V3: Gioele, and 4 sub- treatments on fertigation, i. e, F1: 80 % fertigation of RDF of NPK; F2: 100% fertigation of NPK; F3: 120% fertigation of NPK and F4: 100% application of RDF, manually, i.e., control and three replications. The average daily month wise water requirement per plant of Carnation was computed to the tune of 0.15 cm October, 2012; 0.17cm November; 0.12cm December; 0.12cm January; 0.20 February; .41cm March; 0.56cm April and 0.47cm May, 2013. The total water requirement during crop period was found to be 66.56cm. Among different varietal treatments, the treatment V2 (Pingu) recorded maximum number of branches (9.80); minimum days for bud initiation (89.83 days)& flowering(164.83 days) ; maximum flower diameter (7.83cm) and stalk length (60.22cm) & girth (4.43mm) as well as maximum number of flowers per m2 area 281. As for effect of fertigation treatment is concerned, the treatment F3 (120% fertigation of RDF of NPK) is found very effective, might be due to application of higher doses, resulting maximum plant heights 28.88, 28.83, 45.31, 62.20, 80.33, 85.21 and 87.18cm, respectively at 30,60,90,120,150,180 and 210 DATs. Also, the number of branches (11.59); minimum time for bud formation (87.89 days), minimum days to flowering (165.11 days), maximum stalk length (57.83cm) and girth (4.91mm) as well as maximum number of flower per m2 area (352.22). The b/c ratio was also found highest in fertigation treatment F3, i.e. 2.60, 2.56 and 2.59 for all the varieties ,i.e., V1, V2 and V3, respectively, whereas lowest 0.81, 0.96 and 0.85 was recorded in control treatment (F4) for Loris, Pingu and Gioele, respectively.