Farm Machinery
Solar Powered Tricycle Carts
Solar power operated tricycle cart for fruits and vegetable vending
- It can be built on any small base vehicle ex.: TATA ACE, Intra etc. 300 kg capacity .
- Evaporative cooling, TV, audio system, digital balance, GPS systems , LED lights are fitted and run by solar power S.S angles, sheet Cost : Rs. 12 lakhs at Bengaluru ( cost varies depends on base vehicle).
- It saves 10 to 15 % of post harvest losses.
Automatic Step Seeder
Automatic step seeder for vegetable nursery (Arka Automatic Dibbler cum Seeder for Vegetable Nursery)
- The machine designed is suitable for 98 protray cell which is widely used for vegetable nursery raising. This system consisted of protray conveyor and indexing system, dibbling unit, seed sowing unit, penumatic systems, electronic controls, vacuum pump, compressor and programmable logic controller (PLC).
- About eight man hours are required to sow 10 trays /hr, whereas with this machine 150 protrays/hr can be sown. With this, the seedling production cost will be reduced which will lead to reduce in input cost of farming.
- The present machine was calibrated for sowing tomato, capsicum, brinjal and chilli seeds.
- There was 94% pick up by the machine sown trays and % germination by machine and manual methods were on par.
Mechanized Raw Jackfruit Peeler
Mechanized Raw Jackfruit peeler (Arka Mechanized Raw Jackfruit Peeler)
- The minimal processing of the jackfruit involving mechanised peeling of the skin using modified wood planer hastens the process of peeling by five times as compared to the manual traditional peeling by using knife.This hassle free and quick method of peeling can process 4-5 kg weighing jackfruit in less than five minutes.
- The mechanical peeling could not only reduce the drudgery involved in the manual peeling but also saved lot of time.
- The implement has two components like the peeling unit and thestainless steel box. The peeling unit is power operated.
- The box encloses the peeling unit and collects the peel scrapings. It is provided with bolt holes to secure it on a surface.
- The upper surface has the peeling base supported on SS square bars. The peeling base holds the peeling machine.
Onion Size Grader
Power operated on farm onion size grader
- An onion size grader for common onion with capacity of 2 ton/h was developed.
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Its Components :
- Feeding chute
- Grading drum
- Collection chute
- Power transmission system
- The grader has three portions in which cushioned rods were mounted with a constant gap to grade onion less than 40 mm, 40.1 – 60 mm and 60.1 – 75 mm.
- The oversize onions greater than 75.1 mm size are collected at the other end of grading drum whereas, other three grades are collected through the cushioned outlets mounted below the grading drum.
- One 2 hp geared motor with 50 rpm speed and four rollers mounted on the frame used to rotate the grading drum. The cost of grading was 10 times lower than manual grading.
Vegetable Dicing Tool
Portable Vegetable Dicing tool
- Vegetable cutting in bulk is laborious and time consuming. Presently only kitchen dicing tool is available in market for dicing of vegetables in small quantities (house hold use).
- For cutting of vegetables in large quantities power operated vegetable slices are available but not hand operated.
- This portable vegetable dicing tool is heavy duty, sturdy, long lasting and could be used for continuous dicing in bulk in places with no power consumption.
- The efficiency of cutting of the tool was 97.23%. The cost saving in operation over conventional methods was 44% and time saving in operation over conventional method was 71%.
- Suitable for street fast food vendors, marriage food caterers, restaurants, etc.
Vending Van
Fruit and vegetable vending van
- The van consists of an evaporating cooling system for providing higher humidity required to maintain the freshness in fresh fruits and vegetables even under normal conditions.
- The designed evaporative cooling system helps in retaining the freshness in fruits and vegetables up to 36-48 hours or even more depending on the produce being stored and the weather conditions.
High Humidity Storage Box
Arka high humidity storage box for shelf life extension of Green leafy vegetables
- A high humidity storage box of size 740x515x210mm made of transparent acrylic sheet of 6mm thickness was designed, fabricated and evaluated for freshness retention of coriander leaves.
- Green leafy vegetables stored in novel high humidity storage box which maintained a temperature of 20°C and 95% RH had a shelf life of 3 days under ambient condition as compared to 2 days under commercial practice.
- Samples stored in the high humidity storage box had higher freshness retention compared to those stored in commercial practice.
- Moreover, green leafy vegetables stored in these boxes showed lesser physiological loss in weight (PLW%) better retention of ascorbic acid, iron and calcium compared to those stored under commercial practice.
- Therefore, novel custom designed zero energy high humidity storage box hold potential for storage and shelf life extension of green leafy vegetables.
Arka Mushroom Growing Unit
Solar Power Integrated Outdoor Mushroom Growing Unit
- The present technology relates to the production of oyster mushroom by using low cost Solar Power Integrated Outdoor Mushroom Growing Unit which can be at both rural and urban levels.
- Presently most of the growers are using permanent or semi permanent structures for growing these mushrooms.
- The newly designed outside mobile chamber is low cost in comparison to the permanent building and even during non favourable conditions like months of April and May, the mobile chamber gives a better environment for mushroom growing due to its evaporative cooling principal as compared to permanent structures.
- As the availability of the space and capacity of the investment is less, maintenance is easy and less costly for adoption.
- Such structures will help in developing entrepreneurship not only in mushroom cultivation but also to fabricate and sell the units to the needy growers. It enhances mushroom cultivation to make mushroom as a part of diet.
- Daily consumption which can help in mitigation of malnutrition and also additional income can be generated for entrepreneurship development especially among women.
- The overall dimension of the growing chamber is 1.35 x 0.93 x 1.69 m which is made up of 1” CPVC pipes and fittings. It is covered with nylon 40 mesh to protect the entry of insects and to facilitate the aeration.
- It is further covered with locally available gunny bag all around and it is wetted to maintain humidity inside the chamber. A 30 W DC misting diaphragm pump with 10 nozzles of 0.1 mm size to produce more than 100 bar pressure to get very fine misting inside the chamber.
- It can be operated either by electric power or using Solar power system with 300 W panel, inverter, 12V storage battery and a timer.
- The entire growing chamber is fitted inside a mild steel frame of 1.08 x 1.48 x 1.8 (side height)x 2.2 (centre height) with mobile wheels for easy mobility and transport. The solar panels are mounted on the roof top of the frame and inverter and battery are mounted and supported in the frame.
- A 30 litre water tank is fitted at the bottom side of the frame along with the misting pump. It was evaluated by growing two varieties of oyster varieties viz., 20 bags (1 kg) of Elm oyster and White oyster mushroom were evaluated both at cropping room and outside chamber every month from 2016 to 2018.
- The average yield recorded during 2016 to 2018 shows that there is an average increase of 108 % in Elm oyster yield in mobile chamber in comparison to the cropping room yield. Similarly, an increase of 51% mushroom yield was recorded in white mushroom yield.
- The average monthly mushroom yield from this structure is 25-28 kg.
Pomegranate Aril Extractor
Power operated pomegranate aril extractor
- Useful to extract arils.
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Features:
- Capacity – 100kg /h
- Efficiency- 95%
- Power – 0.75 kW, 3 phase
Vertical Garden Structure
Arka vertical garden structure
- The vertical garden structure is useful for safe growing of the selected vegetable requirement of a family and can be accommodated in sunlit utility area, balcony and terrace.
- This structure can also be used by anyone who desires to grow vegetables, medicinal and flower crops using vertical space.
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The vertical garden structure has three major sub
structure viz.
- Base frame
- Main central support
- supports for pots/grow bags.
- Pots suitable for growing different vegetables, flowers and medicinal plants can be used with soil or soilless (cocopeat) growing medium.
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The advantages of this vertical structure :
- Can be accommodated in floor area of one square meter,
- Fresh vegetables grown can be consumed,
- Different sizes of plant pots/grow bagscan be accommodated,
- Consumer also controls the use of fertilizer, pesticide and inspective to its safe limit and he also knows what he consumes,
- Structure suitable for handling in terms of height of reach, mobility, requirement light available to all the pots and
- Effective utilization of maximum area for growing plants.
- Plants like tomato (pot size- 16” dia. and 12” height), chilli, brinjal, French bean, peas etc., (pot size- 12” dia. and 10” height) which need bigger size pot, grow to a height about 2 feetand require more growing media are placed at the base of the structure.
- Leafy vegetables like amaranthus, coriander, palaketc., (pot size- 26” x 8”x 6” (LxWxH) ) and medicinal plants like brahmi, pudina, pepper mint, amruthaballi, doddapatre, madhnashini, thippali, ashwagandha, shatavari etc., ( pots size -14” x 8”x6” (LxWxH)) are placed upper levels.
- A 25 litre plastic container at the top of the structure with necessary drip laterals, microtubes and drippers are also provided to water the plants.
- Yield of 200 gto 5 kg of produce (depending on the crop) can be harvested per crop cycle. The cost of vertical garden structure is Rs. 22,000.
Sealer Cum Healer for Trunk Borers
Improved version of Sealer cum Healer for the control of Mango stem borer (Arka Borer control)
- The innovated formulation consists of several inert materials to serve as carrier and herbal oils to be effective for one season without adding any insecticide.
- This formulation is mixed with water in a ration of 1:0.4 (approx) to bring down to gel form or melted ice cream consistency to be applied on mango stem using 2 or 3 inches brush.
- The swabbed formulation is allowed to dry on plant so that it works as repellent and as well as curative treatment to neutralize the eggs, early instars of larvae and grubs living on stem.
- The improved formulation of SCH was significantly superior to control by avoiding infestation up to 8 weeks in laboratory trial. When the trial was continued further for 16 weeks the female beetle spent time up to 3.3 percent of its total time compared to 60.3% of its time in control suggesting its repellency effect up to 4 months.
- The product swabbed with older formulation and immersed in water for overnight lost nearly 52% of swabbed SCH but in new formulation the loss on solubility was less than 1%.
- The product is now made suitable for both low and heavy rainfall areas and also oviposition deterrent for mango stem borer Batocerarufomaculata and hence can be applied as an effective prophylactic measure.
Continuous Hot Water Treatment Unit
Continuous hot water treatment unit to control fruit fly and anthracnose infections in mangoes
- ICAR-IIHR designed and developed a semi-automatic system (500 kg capacity) and the system is validated at Bengaluru and tribal mango growing region in Rayagada in Odisha.
- It consists of a Frame made out of mild steel with overall dimensions of 5m × 2m × 3m with ‘I’ section bar on the top to hold motorized hoist.
Onion Detopper
Power operated Onion detopper
- De-topping is one of the unique operations in cultivation of onion crop and it is tedious, laborious and time consuming operation demanding huge labour to the extent of 12.5 man-hrs/t.
- This power operated onion de-topper consists of a feed conveyor for feeding cured onion crop, de-topping rollers for shearing the leaves, separate collection chutes for the de-topped onion bulbs and leaves, main frame, power and power transmission system.
- The onion detopper was powered by a three phase, 2 hp, 900 rpm electrical motor with necessary speed reduction gear box.
- The performance parameters of onion de-topper were found to be 98 % de-topping efficiency, 0.98 effectiveness of de-topping, 2 % damage and 300 kg/h capacity at 200rpm with the machinery costing about Rs.1,50,000/- per unit.
Arka Neelachal Fertreedrill
Arka Neelachal Fertreedrill
- The FERTREE Drill has been designed in such a manner that it can be attached perfectly with the power tiller and could deliver fertilizer effectively in the feeder root zone.
- The implement has three units: storage unit, transmission unit and delivery unit.
- Storage unit has a funnel shaped two chambered fertilizer box (hopper) of 65x50x40 cm dimension having the fertilizer carrying capacity of 20 kg.
- There is a separate chamber for granular fertilizer and powder form of fertilizer in the fertilizer box. Agitator (non-screw type) has been attached at the base of the box to ensure continuous flow of fertilizer.
- The agitator gets power through a pulley attached with the crank of the power tiller. To control of flow of fertilizer, two valves (one in each chamber) have been provided at the base of hopper which can be manually controlled.
- The transmission unit has two PVC delivery pipe (5 mm dia.) which receives fertilizer from box and transmit to the delivery unit.
- The delivery unit has a funnel shaped collection box (20x20x20 cm) without valve wherein delivery pipe (4 cm dia.) is attached. The delivery pipe is attached with tyne and furrow opener.
- The delivery GI pipe (4 cm dia.) places fertilizer (@ 4-10 kg/minute) just behind the furrow opener. The depth of the furrow can be adjusted with the help of two wheels attached with the wheel supporting bar of cultivator.
Onion Bulblet Planter
Arka Raised bed onion bulblet planter
- Tractor drawn implement with the minimum power of 35 hp.
- Forms raised bed and planting (by self-covering with soil) the bulblets with fixed row spacing of 15 cm and acceptable plant spacing of 15 cm under fine tilth condition.
- Field capacity of the machine is 0.12 ha/h.
- Precision index is 28 which is close for any precision planting.
- Labour saving to the tune of 35 % due to the twin operation of bed farming and planting simultaneously.
- Can be easily manufactured by an agricultural implements/machinery manufacturer.
- Reduces the drudgery involved in manual operation and ensures timely planting.
