Dairy farming has become one of major sources of income for farmers. To maintain a large dairy farm, fodder must be available in palatable form at every point of time in sufficient quantity. To ensure that the ready fodder is available for cattle, a high-capacity chaff cutter is necessary. A high speed and  hogh-capacity chaff cutter procured from the local market and tested for its performance. The machine consisted of a flywheel type cutter head which was mounted on the rectangular platform. The cutter head consisted of three rectangular plain knives fixed 120° apart on a circular disc of 440 ϕ. The feeding assembly was mounted with three feed rollers viz., upper, low, and additional. Chute type feeding mechanism was provided. The machine was operated by a 3.73 kW diesel engine.  The ‘v’ belt was provided for power transmission from engine to cutter head with a reduction ratio of 1:0.32. Feed rollers were driven by bevel and spur gears. Short run and long run evaluation of the machine were conducted for napier grass and dry jowar. The variation in length of cut pieces was found to be 8.39% and 5.78% for dry jowar and napier grass, respectively. Quality of cut was calculated and found to be -0.80 for dry jowar and -0.53 for napier grass. The average efficiency of the machine was found to be 86.87% and 88.93% for dry jowar and napier grass, respectively. The average diesel consumption was found to be 0.69 l h-1.

Present study for investigating the role of organic amendments on the growth and production of the black gram (Vigna mungo). The findings of the research illustrate that, the application of vermicompost + ghanajeevamrutha based on 100 % RDP + Rhizobium + PSB documented a significantly greater Dry matter yield (2740 kg/ha), number of pods/plant (19.33), number of seeds/pod (6.33), the grain yield (701.33 kg/ha), the haulm yield (2038.76 kg/ha) as compared to others and higher gross returns (?. 54540 ha-1), net returns ( ?. 23083 ha-1) and Benefit-Cost ratio (1.74) in black gram production.

Background: Pulses play an important role in Indian agriculture for sustainable production, improvement in soil health and environmental safety. They are a cheaper source of protein to overcome malnutrition among vegetarians due to the presence of a high percentage of quality protein which is nearly three times more than that of cereals. They are more responsive to organic manures but indiscriminate and continuous use of chemical fertilizers has venomous effects on soil physical, chemical and biological properties thereby affecting the sustainability of crop production, besides causing environmental pollution. Methods: The experiment consists of 12 treatments comprising organic amendments laid out in RCBD (completely randomized block design) with three replications. The black gram variety TAU-1 was sown with a spacing of 45 cm x 10 cm. The recommended dose of phosphorus for black gram was supplemented with different combinations of soil organic manures with equal proportions based on their P content. The required quantity of organic manures viz., Farmyard manure, vermicompost, Ghanajeevamrutha were uniformly incorporated into the soil as per the treatment three weeks before sowing. The organic manures to be applied were quantified equivalent to RDF (20 kg N+50 kg P2O5+0 kg K2O ha-1). Result: The studies showed that application of vermicompost+ghanajeevamrutha based on 100% RDP (Recommended dose of Phosphorus)+Rhizobium+PSB (Phosphorus Solubilizing bacteria) recorded significantly higher plant height (87.67 cm), number of branches per plant (6.33), relative chlorophyll content (48.11) and dry matter (2740.00 kg ha-1) with higher concomitant seed quality parameters like seed index (10.25 g) and protein content (22.7%) as compared to others. This study has demonstrated the importance of the usage of organics for improving the growth and seed quality parameters in black gram.

An experiment was conducted to examine the influence of soil aggregate size on maize root growth and development. The loamy soil samples resulted from different number of passes of rotary tilling experimental runs under the controlled soil bin were selected. The soil texture chosen in this study was sandy loam. The soil samples were obtained after the interval of 10 passes of rotary tilling (10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 passes) at moisture content of 10.28 % (w.b). Soil samples collected were kept for the pot experiment. The roots were analysed at 8DAE, 16DAE, and 24DAE for their early growth. Duncan’s multiple range tests for the effect of soil aggregate size on root growth showed the decrease in root growth in soil aggregates finer than 1.5 mm. The decline in root length considerable after 30 passes of rotary tilling (40 passes:74.32cm, 50passes:63.77cm, 60passes:46.63cm).The declined root growth in soil aggregates finer than 1.5mm  was attributed to continuous rotary tilling deteriorated the soil structure and hindered the root growth. The soil structure starts degrading with excessive application of rotavator and which in turn develops compacted soil layers in 20-30cm sub soil depth.