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In cotton, mechanized harvesting has gained popularity in recent years due to labor-intensive process and shortage of labor. Moreover, mechanized harvesting of cotton depends on plant morphological characters like plant height, internodal length and synchronized boll maturity and opening etc. Mechanized harvesting enhancing the harvesting efficiency of cotton which is achieved by the use of some chemicals to attain good lint yield and fibre quality. With this background, the field experiment was conducted to study the impact of growth retardant and defoliant on morpho-physiological traits and yield improvement in cotton (CO 17) during 2021-2022 by following randomized block design with four treatments and five replications. The current study revealed that spraying of 0.015% mepiquat chloride (MC) at square formation and boll development stage significantly reduced the leaf area, plant height, total dry weight and boll number when compared to control. However, chlorophyll content and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) were recorded higher in 0.015% mepiquat chloride (MC) applied treatments than control. Moreover, spraying of mepiquat chloride (0.015%) at square formation and boll development stage followed by spraying of 0.9% sodium chlorate (SC) at 60% boll bursting stage significantly increased the seed cotton yield compared to other treatments and recorded maximum seed cotton yield of 25.22% compared to control. Results clearly indicate that application of MC followed by SC could be a better practice for canopy management in cotton, resulting in improved efficiency of mechanical harvesting and good lint yield and fibre quality.

Cotton, known as “the King of fibers”, is the predominant fiber in the Indian textile industry. Plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) represent a potential sustainable alternative for the enhancement and protection of crops. The germination and seedling growth of cotton can be optimized by inoculating with PGPR. An experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different PGPR strains on seed germination and seedling establishment characters on cotton. The highest germination percentage, maximum vigour index and leaf area was obtained with the PPFM TNAU1 strain inoculation. The maximum shoot and root length were observed with seeds treated with Azospirillum strain sp7 with an increase of 24.4 and 42.8% over the control. Underground fresh and dry matter was higher in seedlings treated with Azospirillum sp7 strain compared to control, while the PPFM TNAU1 strain treatment increased the aerial fresh and dry matter content because of its larger leaf area. Seeds inoculated with individual strain of Azospirillum sp7 and PPFM TNAU1 outperformed the combined inoculation of PGPR strains. The increase in germination traits and seedling characters by PGPR strains indicates the positive influence on improving cotton seedling establishment traits associated to higher yield.

Shallot or aggregatum onion (Allium cepaL. var. aggregation.) is one of the oldest bulb crops known to mankind and extensively grown and consumed in Southern states of India. They are one among the most important commercial vegetable and spice crops, widely used in the south Indian kitchen mainly for seasoning of curries. Aggregatum onion invariably forms afresh cluster of bulbs, often as many as 10 or 15 per cluster. In India, presently about 35 to 40 percent of the onion is estimated to be lost by post-harvest practices during various operations including handling and storage. Presently after harvest onions are processed by hand labor to remove the leaves and the roots. Hand topping has obvious disadvantages including both cost and length of time necessary to process a large number of onions. However, in recent times it is becoming increasingly difficult to find sufficient skilled labor to do the job. Farmers and processors need a suitable post-harvest machine for stem cutting of shallot onion. Owing to the practical problem in the processing of shallot onion a stem cutting machine for shallot onion was designed and fabricated. The fabricated machine with different parameters like the slope of the machine and different speeds of the rollers were optimized. Different slopes (100, 200, 300) with two roller speeda (500 to 1500 rpm) were studied, results observed showed that at 200 slope and 1000 rpm, the cutting efficiency was very good (100%) with less damage to bulbs (2%).

Aim: The current study focuses on the effect of PP nanocomposite multi-layered film on physicochemical properties of stored idli batter and prepared idli cakes. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Food Packaging and System Development at Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India, between Aug 2018 and Dec 2019. Methodology: The developed PP nanocomposite multi-layered film composed with depositing silicon dioxide (SiO2) on polypropylene (PP) film (0.010 mm) and attached with ethylene-vinyl alcohol (EVOH 32%) film (0.066 mm). The Physico-chemical properties of developed multi-layered and commercial PP film stored idli batter with different blend ratios of rice to black gram (3:1 and 4:1) were evaluated in terms of pH, percent titrable acidity (% TA), colour value (∆E), viscosity (cP) and volume measurement (ml). Idli cake prepared with batter stored in multi-layered film and evaluated in terms of colour, texture and percent pore characteristics. The percent pore presents in per square inches of prepared idli cake with different blend ratios and fermentation time were analysed using the grayscale image in MATLAB. Results and Discussion: The pH value of stored batter ranges from 6.7 to 4.5 or lower, to reach pH below 4.5 or lower commercially stored batter took 24 h and batter stored in the multi-layered film took 36 h at ambient temperature. The multi-layered stored batter showed better results of physicochemical properties in terms of fermentation time. Idli cake prepared with 3:1 blend ratio showed good results in terms of textural properties with compared to 4:1 blend ratio. Idli cake prepared with 3:1 blend ratio showed more pore percentage (21.88-36.80%) as compared to 4:1 blend ratio (18-32.98%) in per square inch. Due to higher barrier properties of the multi-layered film, the bacterial count increases at a slow rate and help to extend the shelf life of packaged batter more than 30 h at ambient temperature.

Aim: The current study focuses on development of high oxygen barrier multi-layered packaging film for shelf life extension of Ready-to-Cook (RTC) idli batter. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Food Packaging and System Development at Indian Institute of Food Processing Technology, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu, India, between Aug 2018 and Dec 2019. Methodology: The developed multi-layered film composed with polypropylene (PP) nanocomposite by depositing silicon dioxide (SiO2) on PP (0.010 mm) film and attached with different thickness of barrier layers were PP (0.010–0.053 mm) and ethylene-vinyl alcohol (EVOH 32%) film (0.066 mm) using layer-by-layer (LbL) process. The physical and chemical characteristics of commercial (A) and all developed multi-layered (B, C, D, E and F) films were tested for barrier and mechanical properties. Results and Discussion: The SEM analysis confirmed that the developed PP nanocomposite multi-layered films have a presence of SiO2 with quasi-spherical structure with diameter ranging from 200 to 500 nm. FTIR analysis also identified the presence of Si-O-Si group on all the developed PP nanocomposite films at wavenumber ranges from 1100-900 cm-1 and 467 cm-1. The film composed with PP++SiO2+EVOH (sample F) showed lower in oxygen transmission rate (OTR) of 452.46±33.94 cc/m2/24h and water vapour transmission rate (WVTR) of 1.07±0.16 g/m2 day. The batter stored in sample F film help to extend the shelf life upto 33 h at ambient temperature and commercially stored batter spoiled quickly (24 h) at ambient temperature.