As we know, nowadays issues in the agriculture field are a major concern. According to the Union Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Narendra Singh Tomar, 5,579 Indian farmers died by suicide in 2020. There are many conflicting reasons for farmer suicides which are mentioned by Activists and scholars but high debt burdens, crop failure, mental health, and personal issues have been some of the most common causes amongst them. So, what is the solution that would work in farmers’ favor...
ABSTRACT Shelling of groundnut pods (Arachis hypegea) by hand is tedious, laborious and unhygienic with low efficiencies. As a result farmer get low income due to amount of broken kernels and a lot of time is lost in the tedious shelling operation. To overcome this problem, pertinent parameters that influence shelling efficiency of pedal operated groundnut decorticator were identified. Pedal operated decorticator were designed and fabricated with chain and sprocket of bicycle and aluminum spi...
ABSTRACT The single wheel driven boom sprayer was developed, fabricated and evaluated for its performance at the department of Agricultural and Bio-environmental engineering workshop, Kwara state polytechnic, Ilorin. The spraying performance was carried out at spraying height of 0.5m, 0.6m and 0.7m respectively. The theoretical field capacity CT, the effective field capacity CE and Field efficiency (ŋ) at spraying height of 0.5m are 0.285ha/hr , 0.165ha/hr and 58%, while at spraying h...
ABSTRACT The single wheel driven boom sprayer was developed, fabricated and evaluated for its performance at the department of Agricultural and Bio-environmental engineering workshop, Kwara state polytechnic, Ilorin. The spraying performance was carried out at spraying height of 0.5m, 0.6m and 0.7m respectively. The theoretical field capacity CT, the effective field capacity CE and Field efficiency (ŋ) at spraying height of 0.5m are 0.285ha/hr , 0.165ha/hr and 58%, while at spraying h...
ABSTRACTA portable cold room storage was developed. The system was tested with different types of perishable crops under different temperatures. The system is made up of two units, one, the evaporating unit that is where the produce was stored; it is made up of steel material with 79mm by 45mm in length and breadth. While the second unit is the trolleys, the system consists of a control switch that is calibrated to suit any type of produce stored in the system. It contain a separate basemen...
ABSTRACT An Impact Test Apparatus was developed to determine the impact damage and bruise parameters of five fresh agricultural produce, namely: banana (Musa spp), tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum), sweet potato (Ipomea batatas), cassava tuber (Manihot esculenta) and lemon (Citrus limon) using Impact – Drop Height method. A constant impact energy of 0.9J – 4.5J was maintained as drop heights ranged from 0.20m – 1.00m. The bruise diameter, bruise depth, bruise width, bruise volume, bruise...
Physical and aerodynamic properties of African breadfruit (Treculia africana) seeds were studied at four moisture levels: 12.50, 15.00, 17.50 and 20.10% dry base (w.b). As moisture content increased from 10.50 to 20.10% (w.b), the average weight, major diameter, minor diameter, intermediate diameter, geometric mean diameter, arithmetic mean diameter of the seeds ranged from 0.35±0.08 to 0.60g±0.04g, 8.08±0.90 to 10.05±0.60mm, 4.04±0.53 to 5.00±0.10mm, 2.96±0.43 to 4.60±0.40mm, 4.52±0...
Abstract Purpose: Thepresentoldstandardefficiencymotors(SEM)inblackteaprocessingmachineryconsumelargeamountofelectricity,thusincreasesthecostofproduction.Technologicallyimprovedhigh-efficiencymotors(HEM)orHEMcoupledwith variablespeeddrive(VSD)couldbeusefultoachievehigh-energyefficiency.Therefore,astudywasconductedwiththefocusto determinethefeasibilityofintroducingHEMandVSDinwitheringandrollingmachineryofblackteamanufacturing. Methods: Awitheringtroughandtwodifferentcapacityrotorvanerollerswe...
ABSTRACT A non-weighing lysimeter was designed, fabricated, tested and installed at Arochukwu, Abia State, Nigeria, where the farmers who engage in dry season vegetable production do so with no knowledge of irrigation water requirements. This method tends to either over-irrigation or under-irrigation below the vegetable water requirements. Too much water can leach costly fertilizers to depths below the root zone, where both the water and fertilizer are permanently lost. Too little water caus...
ABSTRACT A direct-heated solar crop dryer suitable for rural farmers and households was developed and evaluated. The simple structured dryer was fabricated using square and round pipes, aluminium sheet, Perspex, wire gauze, bolts and nuts. Its performance was evaluated using cassava chips and three cylindrical aluminium chimneys of heights 1200mm, 800mm and 400mm; all of equal diameter. Mature cassava roots were peeled, washed, chopped into flat circular chips of 10mm thickness and spread on...
ABSTRACT This study is on the determination of the Compressive Strength of Palm Kernel Shell Concrete. The effect of percentage replacements (0, 25, 50, 75 and 100%) of crushed granite with palm kernel shell on density and compressive strength of concrete is presented. Concrete cube specimens of mix 1:2:4 were prepared with water-cement ratio of 0.6. The cubes (150mm×150mm×150mm) were cured using water-submerged curing until testing ages of 7, 14, 21 and 28 days when their densities and co...
ABSTRACT An indirect, natural convection solar-assisted charcoal smoking system was designed and fabricated in one of the host communities of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri where most of the fish farmers and processors adopt the conventional method of drying fishes, that is, using firewood. This method which works well during the dry period of the year is very inconvenient during the rainy season. Given the excessive heat generated by firewood and its resultant effect on the pr...
ABSTRACT Being able to assess the hydrologic ability of Abu Habil catchment to satisfy its future water demands is crucial in order to plan for the future and make wise decisions. In this study a Scenario Analysis approach was used by utilizing NB-DSS model for water resource management, evaluation allocation and planning, in order to assess the impacts of possible future water demands on the water resources of Khour Abu Habil catchment. For each scenario, the main outputs of the model were ...
ABSTRACT This study reports synthesis of solidacid catalyst from cheaper raw materials for efficient biodiesel production. The dissertation consists of six main research section including: (1) Synthesis and characterization of ordered solidacid catalyst from kaolin; (2) Synthesis and characterization of hierarchical nanoporous HY zeolite from acid activated kaolin; (3) Synthesis of nanoporous HY zeolites from activated kaolin, a central composite design (CCD) optimization study; (4) Synthesis...
Abstract The computer program for machinery cost estimation (CP-Mace) is a Windows based software program that can be run on a Windows XP or higher system on computers. It is a user-friendly interactive program written in VISUAL BASIC 6 programming language for machinery management. It allows the user to interact with it by entering the required inputs and it will carry out the interactive calculations. The program enables the user to print out the output which is displayed on the screen. Th...