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A study was conducted to find out the present status and level of mechanization in different operations as carried out in apple cultivation. It was observed that most of these operations are performed manually by hand using traditional tools. Land preparation with spade (0.002 ha/h), pit digging with spade (3 to 4 pits/day of size 1x1x1 m), basin preparation with spade (2-4 basin/h), pruning by secateurs/pruner (1-2 plants/h) and harvesting by hand (12-15 kg h-1person-1) resulted in very low efficiency thus increase the cost of operation and drudgery and ultimately reduces the net returns to the growers. The bottlenecks in mechanization are due to undulating topography, small and scattered land holdings, lack of approach roads and lack of awareness among the farmers. In spite of these, there is a tremendous scope to mechanize various practices in apple cultivation in hills of Himachal Pradesh through improved and suitable mechanization technology so that the apple grower s may be benefited. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The hydropower in Himachal Pradesh at micro level can be harnessed by tapping the water energy at the various sites, where sufficient quantity of water and a drop of 2–4 m is available in a tributary, which save the commercial energy used for agro industries. Presently, a number of water mills in the Kangra valley are in operation for running various agro-based machines by utilizing the source of water as energy. Keeping this in view, the vertical and horizontal water mills installed in the Palampur area of distict Kangra have been studied to compare their advantages, energy saving, functioning, constraints, and problems faced by the beneficiaries. It is observed that a number of operations can be performed by the horizontal water mill with the help of various machines, such as flour mill, rice huller, oil expeller, etc., while only one machine, i.e., flour mill, can be successfully run by the vertical water mill. Though the installation cost of the horizontal water mill is high in comparison to the vertical water mill, it can be suitable for installing domestic agro-based industries which will provide employment to unemployed rural educated youth. The savings in the form of electrical energy will be as much as 1.3 MW and 2.6 MW per month with the adoption of vertical and horizontal water mills, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]