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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 Design Modification of Two Row Battery Operated Vegetable Transplanter(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2022) KUMAR, NIRANJAN; Sinha, JayaVegetables are the essential part of diet in India. India is the second largest producer of the vegetables after China. Generally, in India vegetable is transplanted either by traditional manual method which requires high labour cost and high drudgery during transplanting. To reduce the drudgery and manpower requirement in transplanting operation mechanization in vegetable cultivation is needed. The mechanical transplanting of vegetable has been considered the most promising option, as it saves labour, ensures timely transplanting and attains optimum plant density that contributes to high productivity. Keeping this in view, the study was conducted to evaluate the field performance of CAET developed battery operated vegetable transplanter and modification was done as per requirement. The Modified Single Row Battery Operated Vegetable Transplanter (MSRBOVT) had main frame, DC motor, battery, power transmission unit, furrow opener, ski type furrow closing device, seedling delivery tube, seedling holding tray, escalator and motor controller. Field performance of Existing Two Row Battery Operated Vegetable Transplanter (ETRBOVT) and MSRBOVT was done with chilli and brinjal plug seedling. Both transplanter was ergonomically evaluated in terms of physiological cost of operator like subjects heart beat rate and energy expenditure rate during 15 minutes of working. For transplanting chilli and brinjal plug seedling by ETRBOVT at an average speed of 0.192 km/h the average field capacity and field efficiency was observed to be 0.015 ha/h and 86.10%. The transplanting efficiency and survival plant percentage was found 87.61% and 85.78% respectively. Row to row distance, plant to plant distance and depth of transplanting was found to be 0.45 m, 0.45-0.5 m and 0.04 m respectively. The average transplanting rate by existing transplanter was observed to be 692 seedlings per hour. For transplanting chilli and brinjal plug seedling by MSRBOVT at an average speed of 0.289 km/h the average field capacity and field efficiency was observed to be 0.016 ha/h and 92.82%. The transplanting efficiency and survival plant percentage was found to be 88.95% and 86.98% respectively. Row to row distance, plant to plant distance and depth of transplanting was found to be 0.6 m, 0.45-0.5 m and 0.05 m respectively. The average transplanting rate by modified transplanter was calculated 547 seedlings per hour. Average heart beat rate for operating the ETRBOVT for continuous working by Subject A, B, and C was measured to be 113, 136 and 119 beats/min respectively. Average energy expenditure rate for operating the ETRBOVT by Subject A, B, and C was found to be 19.65, 29.18 and 22.14 kJ/min respectively. The work load in operating modified transplanter shifted to “heavy work” to “moderate work” category. Average heart beat rate for operating the MSRBOVT for continuous working by Subject A, B, and C was found to be 100, 119 and 102 beats/min respectively. Average energy expenditure rate for operating the MSRBOVT for continuous working by Subject A, B, and C was found to be 14.11, 22.14 and 15 kJ/min respectively. Cost of operation per hectare with ETRBOVT was Rs.4249.33/ha. Cost of operation per hectare with MSRBOVT was Rs.3673.12/ha. Hence, developed MSRBOVT was better in terms of field performance, physiological cost, work load and economic point of view from ETRBOVT.ThesisItem Open Access STUDY OF GROUND WATER BALANCE AND CARBON EMISSION DUE TO GROUND WATER ABSTRACTION IN RPCAU CAMPUS PUSA(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) SINGH, SACHINDRA KUMAR; Chandra, RavishGroundwater is the most preferred water source in various user sectors in India due to its near universal availability, reliability and low capital cost. Groundwater resource estimation is essential for planning and management and distribution of precious ground water resource and gives us insight to allocate groundwater to various sectors like agriculture, water supply, drinking water judiciously. There is an urgent need to study the annual ground water draft, annual ground water recharge to compute the complete evaluation of ground water resource and ground water balance for future possible corrections. Keeping the above things in mind a study in “Study of Ground Water Balance and Carbon Emission due to Groundwater Abstraction in RPCAU Campus Pusa” was undertaken to estimate annual ground water recharge, annual ground water draft, and annual ground water balance for Dr Rajendra Prasad Central Agricultural University Pusa Campus. The study was conducted for three years (2018 to 2020). The GEC norms 1997 was used to estimate annual ground water recharge, annual ground water draft and ground water balance for the study area. This methodology uses the water table fluctuation technique and empirical formula for recharge calculation. The data collected for this investigation were water table fluctuation, annual rainfall, normal rainfall, number of tubewells, brand of tubewells, Power rating of tubewells, tubewell discharge, operating hours and other details of pumping system, hydrology of the area, specific yield, ground water draft, pond area etc. In the present study, the energy consumption and carbon emission through groundwater abstraction in the RPCAU Pusa campus were also studied. The energy required for groundwater abstraction was estimated as per the methodology provide by Rothausen and Conway, 2011. The carbon emission through pumping of groundwater was calculated by using the methodology given by Nelson and Rothausen, 2008.The annual ground water draft used for water supply was found to be 118.2 ha-m, 122.9 ha-m and 111.9 ha-m respectively for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 and the annual ground water draft used for irrigation water supply was found to be 104.8 ha-m, 105.9 ha-m and 84.6 ha-m respectively for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 The total annual ground water recharge for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020 was found to be 108.43 ha-m, 140.49 ha-m and 194.1 ha-m respectively. The stage of ground water development for the year 2018, 2019, and 2020 was found to be 205.7 %, 162.9 % and 101.2 % respectively. The energy requirement for municipal water supply was found to be 239186.5 kWh, 243770.2 kWh and 223198.8 kWh respectively for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020. The energy requirement for irrigation water supply was found to be 155571.6 kWh, 157235 kWh, and 125622.05 kWh respectively for the year 2018, 2019, and 2020. The total carbon emission due to ground water pumping was found to be 97.2 ton, 99 ton and 90.7 ton respectively for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020. The total carbon emission due to irrigation water was found to be 63.2 ton, 63.9 ton and 51 ton respectively for the year 2018, 2019 and 2020.ThesisItem Open Access Development of Gas Fired Portable Maize Roaster-cum-Boiler(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) SINHA, RUPAM; Amitabh, AnupamIn India, the street vendors practiced the traditional method for roasting or boiling the sweet corn. As these roasted or boiled corns are among the most popular snacks enjoyed by the people. The unavailability of an integrated corn roasting cum boiling unit is mainly due to the huge gap between the affordability of Indian street vendors and the high cost of the machines for roasting and boiling. Apart from this, the Indian vendors also experience another drawback in the form of drudgery involved during roasting and boiling where they are constantly exposed to heat. In the traditional practices, the uneven roasting of corns effects its outer beauty or attractiveness, which are disliked by the people. The use of power driven and automated equipments are impossible for Indian street vendors due to their economic conditions. Therefore, developing of a corn roasting device with increased efficiency, productivity and with affordable price is very much needed in order to face the stress and limitations during roasting. In the view of this, a gas fired portable maize roaster-cum-boiler was designed and developed and its performance evaluation was evaluated. The developed roaster-cum-boiler can roast around 30 maize and can boil around 28 maize in an hour. The average heat utilization factor in full load condition was 0.254. An average thermal efficiency of 61.88% was obtained for the unit. The mean roasting efficiency of the developed corn cob roaster cum boiler was determined to be 95.07 per cent. Total cost of the functional prototype is Rs 20,735. The net present worth calculated for next 5 years was Rs 2,10,881, internal rate of return 294.30%, benefit cost ratio 1.37 and payback period 0.33 years inferring that the developed unit is economically viable.ThesisItem Open Access FIELD EVALUATION OF SELF PROPELLED POWER PADDY WEEDER(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) THAKRE, ROHIT; Chandra, SubhashThe experiment was comprising of performance evaluation of power paddy weeder in local soil of Pusa at three moisture levels of soil and two stages of weed height. The performance of machine was compared with the manual weeding method as control treatment. The field capacity of machine was maximum (0.046 ha/h) in treatment T3 having dry soil. However, in treatment T2 (Wet soil) and T1 (Water inundated), the field capacities were 0.42 and 0.40 hectare per hour, respectively. The maximum field efficiency was reported to be 71.42 % in treatment T1 and minimum 67.64 % in treatment T3. Among all treatments, control treatment (T4) had registered maximum weeding efficiency both at 15 and 30 days after transplanting with values (98.15%) and (97.62%), respectively. Among mechanical weeding operations, treatment T1 had maximum weeding efficiency (78.68%) at 30 days after transplanting and the minimum in treatment T3 (74.29%) at the same time interval. The performance index of machine was reported maximum (185.50) in treatment T3 and minimum was (168.04) in treatment T1, respectively at 30 days after transplanting. The plots with mechanical weeding had edge over manual weeding method in respect of plant growth for all the treatments. The treatment T1 had registered highest plant growth (88.90 cm) at 60 days after first weeding. However, in treatment T2 and T3 plant heights were at par and ranging between 86.20 cm to 86.60 cm at the same time interval after first weeding, i.e. 60 days. In relation to the economics of operation, mechanical weeding for all the treatments were much economical than the hand weeding by khurpi, i.e. treatment T4. A saving of Rs.10137.60 was reported in treatment T3 followed by Rs.9402.32 in treatment T2and Rs.8947.32 in treatment T1 on per hectare basis in comparison to treatment T4 as the control treatment and farmers practice of weeding in paddy. All the crop and economic parameters had proved the superiority of power paddy weeder over hand weeding method for weeding in paddy crop.ThesisItem Open Access MICROCONTROLLER BASED ELECTRO HYDRAULICALLY AUTOMATIC DEPTH CONTROL SYSTEM FOR TRACTOR MOUNTED IMPLEMENTS(Dr.RPCAU, Pusa, 2021) SAHU, RAVI KUMAR; Pranav, P. K.The tractor is a major source of power among all the sources of power for agriculture as it has diversified applications. The most commonly operations are field preparation, sowing and interculturing. In all those operations, depth is important factor which is most important parameter in precision agriculture. During farm operation for the operator, it‟s very difficult to maintain the recommended depth of operation without any indication and also have point to point variation in agriculture field. Therefore, a project was undertaken to develop a continuous depth measurement and its control system according to the pre-defined value of depth. A rotary potentiometer measured the depth by sensing the rotation of rockshaft of tractors hydraulic which was displayed digitally. A keypad was used to set the desired depth operation by operator. A stepper motor was connected with the position control lever to control the depth according to the signal getting from microcontroller. The microcontroller compares the input of pre-define depth with real time measured depth and sends the signal to stepper motor to lower/raise the depth as per need. The error in the real time depth measurement was 6.05% and 4.58% when evaluated without and with implement respectively in stationary condition. The automatic depth control system was also evaluated with the simulator as well as tractor and found the depth was well within the ±10% of the pre-defined depth.ThesisItem Open Access ASSESSMENT OF SURFACE WATER RESOURCE IN SAMASTIPUR DISTRICT OF BIHAR USING RS AND GIS(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) G M, RAJESH; Prasad, SudarshanThe study region, Samastipur district of Bihar surrounded by 5 km buffer zone was divided into 67 square grids of 8 km × 8 km spatial resolution using (ArcGIS) software version 10.7.1. The monthly rainfall images (TRMM_3B43) for the period of 20 years from the years of 2000 to 2019 and the monthly dataset of LST (GLDAS_NOAH025_M_EP) products of 0.25o × 0.25o grid size for the period of 21 years from 2000 to 2020 were downloaded and used for analysis. The climatic variables viz. monthly rainfall and LST values were extracted for all grid points (GP-1 to GP-67) using the model builder tool of ArcGIS. Following the recommendation of WMO, the 14 grid points between GP-44 and GP-66 falling under the circumferential coverage of 3000 km2 (radius of 30.90 km) in flat area from MS, Pusa were considered for comparison and validated with ground-based climatic variables measured at MS, Pusa. The graphical technique and statistical techniques like Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), mean error (ME), root mean square error (RMSE), bias (B), and Percent bias (PB) were used for comparison. Bias in extracted climatic variables was identified and was corrected using linear scaling. The Landsat-8 imageries were used to develop LULC using supervised classification technique in ArcGIS. The accuracy assessment was carried out using visual observation, Google Earth image, mathematical analysis and the kappa coefficient. The validated soil map of the study area was procured from NBSS and LUP, Nagpur, India and reclassified into soil textural classes. The available water capacity (AWC) of the soil was computed based upon the land use, soil texture and rooting depth following the suggestion of Thornthwaite and Mather (1957). The surplus and deficit water for all the grid points area was estimated using computed monthly PET, AET and AS as input parameters. Thematic maps of potential evapotranspiration, actual evapotranspiration and availability of surplus and deficit water over the study area were developed using inverse distance weighted interpolation technique of ArcGIS. The study investigated that estimated PET was progressively increasing from January to June and thereafter gradually decreasing from July to December. PET was found maximum (120.7 mm) for the month June and minimum (5.5 mm) for the month January and similar pattern were observed in case of AET. During the months of July (85.3 mm), August (83.9 mm) and September (81.1 mm), AET and PET were found to be equal. The LULC map depicted the five types of land use feature classes viz. agricultural land, barren land, forest land, settlement and water body in the region. Silt loam, clay loam and clay were observed as major soil textural classes distributed in the study region. The study area undergoes an annual water deficit of 121.2 mm distributed during the months of February to May, November and December whereas, the annual water surplus of 523.8 mm during the months of January, July to September.ThesisItem Open Access Development of extruded snacks from rice broken-soybean meal-moringa leaves(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) VERMA, KARISHMA; Sharma, P.D.High temperature short time process in which mixture of moist flour is cater into the extrusion machine at a particular temperature, pressure and resident time is known as extrusion cooking. Food industry produced by-product was used to prepare ready to eat extruded snacks through extrusion cooking. Broken rice powder, defatted soybean meal and Moringa leaves powder were used in varying proportion to prepare composite flour. Laboratory twin screw extruder is used to prepare extruded food product. Central composite rotatable design was used to conduct the experiment having five level of four independent variable each (feed proportion- 85:10:5, 80:13.75:6.25, 75:17.5:7.5, 70:21.25:8.75, 65:25:10 ; feed rate - 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 kg/h, screw speed - 200, 250, 300, 350, 400 rpm, Barrel temperature- 100, 115, 130, 145, 160°C). Thirty treatments were prepared to investigate the effect of independent variables on different dependent variables like moisture content, expansion ratio, bulk density, true density, water activity and overall acceptability. During experiment RSM was used for optimization to obtain the best combination of independent variable and to generate the second order multiple regression equation for all the dependent variables. The best optimized product was prepared at optimum solution in which feed proportion (A) 75:17.5:7.5( 25% broken rice powder, 17.5% defatted soybean meal, 7.5% moringa leaves powder) feed rate(B) 11 kg/ h, screw speed(C) 250 rpm, barrel temperature (D) 145°C produced the most acceptable extruded productin terms of optimum values of Moisture content (MC)-5.6%, expansion ratio (ER)-2.99, bulk density (BD)-124.31 kg/m3, True density (TD)-128.34kg/m3, water activity(Aw)-0.4559, overall acceptability (OA)-7.68.The optimized extruded products have well-balanced acceptable range of the nutrition (moisture content 5.6%, total carbohydrate 69.70%, protein 18.99%, fat 1.98%, fibre 2.224%,ash content 1.49%).ThesisItem Open Access Assessment of land use/land cover changes in Samastipur district of Bihar using RS and GIS(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) KUMAR, JITENDRA; Sahu, R. K.The assessment and analysis of land use/land cover (LULC) changes are required to identify the land use changes from year to year which plays a critical role in planning and implementation of developmental activities. The present study assesses LULC changes in Samastipur district of Bihar using remote sensing and geographical information system. The inventory map of land resources and water bodies have been prepared using satellite data of the year 2020 and the ground truth data. The LULC maps were prepared using LANDSAT-5 (2000, 2005 and 2010) and LANDSAT-8 (2015 and 2020) images by adopting object based image classification technique. Total five classes of LULC- agriculture land, settlement, natural vegetation, sand/barren land and water-bodies were identified for the present study. Accuracy percentage of the classification was assessed based on the error matrix and kappa coefficient. Assessments of LULC changes were done @ 5 years, @ 10 years and @ 20 years during 2000-2020. The developed inventory map indicated that the total area of Samastipur district is 290000 ha out of which 284689 ha (98.17%) has been occupied by land resources and 5311 ha (1.83%) by water bodies. The results on LULC indicated that the agriculture land coverage increased at high rate during 2000-2005 and 2005-2010; and after that it is increasing at slow rate. The natural vegetation coverage is continuously decreasing during years 2000-2020 while settlement is continuously increasing during this period with notable increase during 2000-2005 and 2015-2020. In the time interval of 10 years (2000-2010), the agriculture land area increased by 22.17% (41295 ha); natural vegetation area decreased by 38.04% (22905 ha); the water-bodies decreased by 46.69% (3683 ha); sand and barren land decreased by 61.27% (16151 ha) and settlement area increased by 15.62% (1444 ha). Over the next 10 years (2010-2020), area covered by agriculture land, settlement, water-bodies and sand and barren land increased by 18320 ha (8.05%), 4093 ha (38.30%), 1105 ha (26.27%) and 4558 ha (44.65%) respectively while area covered by natural vegetation decreased by 28076 ha (75.24%). During time interval of 20 years (2000-2020), agriculture land area and settlement area increased by 32% (59615 ha) and 59.91% (5537 ha) respectively while natural vegetation, sand and barren land and water-bodies decreased by 84.66% (50981 ha), 43.98% (11593 ha) and 32.68% (2578 ha) respectively. The analysis of the results indicates that the natural vegetation has decreased at fast rate in the recent years. Therefore, proper attention is required towards stopping of cutting of natural vegetation in the district to save the environment.ThesisItem Open Access Development of osmo-dehydrated value-added products from Elephant Foot Yam (Amorphophallus paeoniifolius)(DRPCAU, PUSA, 2021) KUMAR, AMAN; Shrivastava, MukeshFresh and good quality corms of Elephant Foot Yam (EFY) (Gajendra variety) were procured from the TCA, Dholi campus, DrRPCAU, Pusa, and were washed thoroughly under running water followed by cutting into flakes of approx. 42 mm (L) x 26 mm (W) x 1.8 mm (T) using knife and kitchen grater. CCRD design was applied to carry out osmotic dehydration experiments for four independent variables with five levels each [Salt Concentration (SC) - 5,10, 15, 20, 25%; Solution Temperature (ST) - 30, 35, 40, 45, 50oC; Immersion Time (IT) - 60, 90, 120, 150, 180 min; Solution to Product Ratio (SPR) – 3:1, 4:1, 5:1, 6:1, 7:1]. The effect of these independent variables on different dependent variables like Water Loss (WL, %), Solute Gain (SG, %), Weight Reduction (WR %) and Water Loss/Solute Gain ratio (WL/SG) of osmo-dehydrated product was seen through different experimental combinations (30). The optimization technique by response surface methodology was applied to select the best combination out of these 30 experiments. 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 %, ST- 45℃, IT - 90 minutes and SPR – 6:1 with an optimized yield as WL - 20.65%, SG - 3.6%, WR – 16.05 and WL/SG – 5.74 of with desirability 0.914. A laboratory model tray dryer was used for conducting drying experiments at three different drying air temperatures (50, 60 and 70oC) of raw fresh, blanched and optimized osmosed EFY flakes. On the basis of observed data of weight loss with elapsed drying time, the drying rate and moisture reduction were calculated. Drying of osmosed EFY flakes at 50oC drying air temperature resulted in shorter drying time to produce best quality dried product as compared to blanched and raw fresh EFY flake samples. The drying time of osmosed sample was reduced to 240 minutes as compared to 300 and 390 minutes taken by blanched and raw fresh EFY flake samples. The dehydrated EFY flake samples were taken for Quality evaluation by sensory method, textural properties and rehydration of final product was also carried out. The osmotically dehydrated EFY flake samples dried at 50oC, scored maximum overall acceptability of 7.93 with best rehydration characteristics like rehydration ratio of 3.042 to yield good quality rehydrated sample which can be preserved and used during off- season.
