International Journal of Agricultural Sciences

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447 Vol. 9 (3), pp. 001-006, March, 2019. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

The evaluation of alternative stalk chopping methods in sunflower farming

E. Gonulol¹*, I. S. Dalmis², B. Kayisoglu¹, Y. Bayhan¹ and H. Kocabiyik³

¹University of Namik Kemal, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Farm Machinery, 59030 Tekirdag-Turkey.

²University of Namik Kemal, Vocational College of Technical Science, Dept of Machinery, 59030 Tekirdag-Turkey.

³University of Onsekiz Mart, Faculty of Agriculture, Department of Farm Machinery, 59030 17100 Canakkale- Turkey.

Accepted 15 January, 2019

Abstract

In this study, the alternative chopping methods were compared in sunflower farming. After harvesting sunflower stalk was chopped with three different methods by using three different stalk chopper machines. Two different rotary type machines (RT1 and RT2) and heavy duty disc harrow (CON) were applied in the experiment. Heavy duty disc harrow used as conventional method. Particle size distribution after chopping, management parameters of the machines and energy requirements were determined in the experiment. Maximum frequency with 37.09% for RT1 and 24.62% for CON were found in the stalk size group of 102 - 173 mm. Whereas, maximum frequency with 31.08% was obtained in the size group of 30 - 101 mm for RT2. The highest fuel consumption (19.28 L.ha^-1) was obtained in CON method and the highest field efficiency with 0.886 ha.h^-1 was found in RT2. RT1 has 756.1 MJ.ha^-1 total energy requirements. RT2 has 868.3 MJ.ha^-1 and CON has 944.3 MJ.ha^-1. The differences among methods in frequency of particle sizes, values of fuel consumption and total energy requirements were found to be statistically significant.

Key words: Sunflower, stalk, shedding, chopper, energy.

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447 Vol. 9 (3), pp. 001-009, March, 2019. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Design, fabrication and performance of a motorized cowpea thresher for Nigerian small-scale farmers

S. V. Irtwange

Department of Agricultural and Environmental Engineering, University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Nigeria. E-mail: [email protected]. Tel: +2348035885567.

Accepted 21 November, 2018

Abstract

Based on the results of measurements of moisture content of grains, cowpea grain and pod sizes, grain-pod ratio, angle of friction of grains and some information from literature, a motorized cowpea thresher using a star-shaped beater to which beater belts were attached was designed and locally built. Five varieties of cowpea, K59, Ife-Brown, IT84E- 124, Ife-Bimpe and TVX 715 which are fairly representative of the most popular varieties in Nigeria were selected for the measurement of design parameters. The statistical design used in studying the effect of variety on length, width, thickness, equivalent diameter, sphericity, pod weight and grain-pod ratio with 30 replications, moisture content with 3 replications and angle of friction with 5 replications was complete randomized design (CRD). The moisture content for the grain varieties ranged from 11.06 to 12.02% w.b while the size and shape measurement parameters namely; length, width, thickness, equivalent diameter and sphericity ranged from 8.22 to 10mm, 6.04 to 6.83 mm, 4.36 to 5.38 mm, 6.00 to 7.09 mm and 0.71 to 0.79 respectively for grains. For the pods, the length, width and thickness ranged from 124.78 to 194.93 mm, 7.28 to 9.15 mm and 5.27 to 7.86 mm respectively. The pod weight and grain- pod ratios ranged from 1.96 to 3.39 and 0.75 to 0.86 respectively for all the varieties tested while the angle of friction of grains on mild steel ranged from 23.6^o to 26.6^o. The results of the study as indicated by analysis of variance (ANOVA) show that there is highly significant effect (P 0.01) of variety on all the grains and pods measurement parameters except angle of friction where non -significance was observed. Skewness and kurtosis analysis indicates that the frequency distribution curves for grains and pods measurement parameters generally approximated those of the normal distribution. Based on the optimum machine parameters, the machine throughput was determined to be 101.19, 110.86, 74.33, 75.81 and 102.09 kg grains/hour for K59, Ife-Brown, IT84E-124, Ife-Bimpe and TVX 715 respectively. Preliminary performance evaluation tests carried out on the fabricated thresher using IT84E-124 as the test material at recommended beater and fan speeds of 500 rpm and 1400 rpm respectively indicated average threshing efficiency of 96.29%, percentage damage of 3.55% and percentage threshed and undamaged grains of 92.74%. A cleaning efficiency and loss of 95.60 and 3.71% respectively was observed indicating that with the use of a star-shaped beater, drudgery and cost can be reduced to a minimum and yet achieving good quality products.

Key words: Design, fabrication, thresher, cowpea, performance evaluation.

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447 Vol. 9 (3), pp. 001-009, March, 2019. © International Scholars Journals

Full Length Research Paper

Modeling technical inefficiencies effects in a stochastic frontier production function for panel data

Md. Azizul Baten^1*, Anton Abdulbasah Kamil¹ and Mohammad Anamul Haque²

¹School of Distance Education, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800, Penang, Malaysia.

²Department of Statistics, Shah Jalal University of Science and Technology, Sylhet-3114 Bangladesh.

Accepted 12 January, 2019

Abstract

A stochastic frontier production function is defined for panel data on tea industries, in which the non-negative technical inefficiency effects are assumed to be a function of industry-specific variables and time. The inefficiency effects are assumed to be independently distributed as truncations of normal distributions with constant variances but with means it is a linear function of observable variables. Panel data were used in this study to estimate the production frontier and the technical inefficiency effects of tea production using a Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) methodology. An empirical application of the model is obtained using up to fifteen years of data on tea industries from seven tea regions of Bangladesh. The study observed that Stochastic Frontier Translog Production Function was more preferable compared to Stochastic Frontier Cobb-Douglas Production Function. The findings suggested that 49% technical inefficiency existed in tea yield. The null hypotheses, that the inefficiency effects are not stochastic or do not depend on the labor-specific variables and time of observations, are rejected for these data. This study also revealed that their existence was a negative relationship between size and yield.

Key words: Efficiency, stochastic frontier translog production function, Bangladesh tea Industry.

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447 Vol. 9 (3), pp. 001-007, March, 2019. © International Scholars Journals

Review

Position and application areas of geophytes within landscape design

N. Seyido lu¹, M. Zencirkıran²* and Yahya Aya lıgil³

¹Arslanbey Vocational School, Kocaeli University, Kocaeli,Turkey.

²Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Agriculture Uluda  University, Bursa, Turkey.

³Department of Landscape Architecture, Faculty of Forestry, Istanbul University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Accepted 02 January, 2019

Abstract

Benefiting from the natural vegetation of the region optimizes the planting design both aesthetically and functionally, and efficient planting is achieved through concomitant utilization of various forms. Geophytes are especially preferred in planting works as natural species due to their superior qualities such as easy growth as well as beautiful and glamorous flowers and plant forms in spring and autumn. They are used in parks and gardens overseas, and their use becomes gradually widespread in landscape design works in Turkey, especially in Istanbul Metropolitan City over the recent years. In this study the importance of geophytes in terms of landscape design was covered, general principles and areas of use were explained, and examples were given from the Istanbul metropolitan city.

Key words: Geophytes, planting, landscape design.

International Journal of Agricultural Sciences ISSN: 2167-0447 Vol. 9 (2), pp. 001-009, February, 2019. © International Scholars Journals

Review

Production of bioethanol from sweet sorghum: A review

A.  Almodares^1* and M. R. Hadi²

¹Department of Biology, University of Isfahan, Isfahan-Iran.

²Department of Biology, Sciences and Research Branch of Fars, Islamic Azad University, Iran.

Accepted 21 November, 2018

Abstract

The consumption of bioethanol as biofule may reduce greenhouse gases, gasoline imports. Also it can be replaced with lead or MTBE (Methyl tert-butyl ether) that are air and underground water pollutants, respectively. Plants are the best choice for meeting the projected bioethanol demands. For this scope, a comparative analysis of the technological options using different feedstocks should be performed. Our research and other studies indicate that sweet sorghum can be used as a feedstock for ethanol production under hot and dry climatic conditions. Because, it has higher tolerance to salt and drought comparing to sugarcane and corn that are currently used for biofuel production in the world. In addition, high carbohydrates content of sweet sorghum stalk are similar to sugarcane but its water and fertilizer requirements are much lower than sugarcane. Also, sugarcane is not a salt tolerant plant. On the other hand, high fermentable sugar content in sweet sorghum stalk makes it to be more suitable for fermentation to ethanol. Therefore, it is suggested to plant sweet sorghum for biofule production in hot and dry countries to solve problems such as increasing the octane of gasoline and to reduce greenhouse gases and gasoline imports.

Key words: Sweet sorghum, carbohydrate, bioethanol, biofuel.