1. KAUTIR (Kerala Agricultural University Theses Information and Retrieval)
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Item Technology Assessment of Rubber Based Intercropping Systems Ribs in South Kerala(Department of Agricultural Extension, Vellayani, 2022-01-11) Dini,M Das; Gladis, RThe study on “Technology assessment of rubber based intercropping systems (RBIS) in South Kerala was undertaken with an objective to examine the evolutionary dynamics of horizontal diversification in rubber gardens, its technology needs and the decision-making factors influencing the adoption of rubber based intercropping systems (RBIS). Farmer's attitude toward RBIS was determined and constraints as perceived by the farmers pursuing RBIS were delineated. Sixty farmers practicing rubber based inter cropping with an area of more than 50 cents were randomly selected from rubber dominating agro ecological units of two districts namely Thiruvanathapuram and Kottayam. Farmers from AEU8, AEU9 and AEU12 with 20 farmers from each AEUs were the respondents selected for the study. Ten independent variables were selected through judge’s rating. Adoption of inter crop management practices including nutrient management, pest management and soil conservation measures were the dependent variables of study. On analysis, 66.66 per cent of RBIS farmers belonged to middle age (35-55) ,with an education up to 10th (50%) and 61.67 per cent had family size up to four. Majority(70% ) of RBIS respondents have agriculture as primary occupation. Greater proportion (80%) of RBIS farmers have medium level (1.1-2.95 acre ) of total land holding. About 46.67 per cent of RBIS farmers had little water scarcity and 48.33 per cent had an effective intercropping area of 100-150 cent. Majority of RBIS farmers had medium level of extension participation (65%) and extension contact (65%). Over 53.33 per cent of RBIS farmers had above mean level of market orientation.The distribution of RBIS based on the dominance profile identified that banana was the most dominant intercrop based on numerical dominance. Majority (61.67 %) of RBIS have more than 4 level of horizontal diversification with a mean score value of 4.75. The results on the extent of adoption on production and management technology practices for RBIS revealed that majority of RBIS respondents i.e. 61.66 per cent belonged to medium category followed by 21.67 and 16.67 per cent in low and high category of adoption. On categorization of RBIS respondents into different adopter categories as explained by Rogers, 30% of respondents each belonged to early majority and late majority category, respectively. The result of correlation coefficient between selected independent variable and the extent of adoption of production and management practices of intercrops revealed that only market orientation was significant at 5 % level of significance. On analyzing the different components of technology adoption by factor analysis, out of 13 factors three factors viz., nutrient management measures, pest management measures and soil conservation measures explained 60.473% of the total variance. Intercrop wise extent of adoption of production and management practices showed medium level of adoption for banana (62%), cassava (64.29%), pineapple (56.52%) and elephant foot yam (54.28%). Result of technology need assessment revealed that RBIS farmers felt the need for drainage technologies (115), followed by nutrient management technologies (142) and irrigation technologies (153). On analyzing the decision-making factors influencing the adoption of RBIS, it was revealed that the distance between farmers residence and rubber land was the most important factor. While considering the different dimensions related to specialized components in rubber garden situations, income generation potential was considered as the major dimension with rank 1 followed by regularity of returns (2) and initial cost (3). The percentage contribution from mean intercrop income to mean annual income was 33.14%. The result of the Karl Pearson product moment correlation between the percentage contribution of intercrop area and intercrop income was not significantly related. The result of attitude of farmers towards intercropping system pointed that 55% of the RBIS respondents was with neutral attitude. The major constraints experienced by the RBIS farmers was the high cost of labour with mean score of 2.88. To conclude, the present study indicated that the overall extent of adoption of production and management technology practices of intercrops in RBIS was from medium to low level. This shows the need for the improvement in adoption of technology for production and management practices in RBIS and scaling up the adoption through suitable extension interventions.Attitude plays an important role in the inclusions of intercropping in rubber gardens. Only minority (15%) have negative attitude towards intercropping in rubber gardens. This shows that in future intercropping would become a common phenomenon in rubber gardens and technology options be made for RBIS farmers.Item Investigations on high rate anaerobic bioreactor for energy production from rubber latex processing effluent(Tavanur Department of Farm Machinery and Power Engineering, Kelappaji College of Agricultural Engineering and Technology, 2020) Megha, A S; Shaji James, PAgro-processing industries often contribute significantly in pollution due to discharge of untreated effluents. By anaerobic digestion of these organic effluents, methane rich gas can be produced which is suitable to generate electricity and process heat. But conventional biogas plants are slow in operation with long hydraulic retention times of 35 to 40 days which necessitates large digester volumes. So, anaerobic digestion of high volume agro-processing effluents is feasible only through high rate bioreactors which can reduce hydraulic retention time to few hours. Rubber latex processing effluent (RLPE) is a dilute waste water for which high rate anaerobic treatment can be an affordable technology. Hence, an investigation was taken up to study the performance of Up-flow Anaerobic Hybrid Bioreactor for energy conversion of rubber latex processing effluent (RLPE). Physico-chemical characteristics of RLPE samples were tested and found that RLPE was a dilute waste water with pH in the acidic range. BOD: COD ratio of 0.44 obtained in this study showed good biodegradability of RLPE. A batch anaerobic digestion study was conducted as a preliminary experiment to investigate the biomethanation characteristics of RLPE. The experiment consisted of four treatments having different composition of RLPE with inoculums replicated thrice. This study could prove that RLPE could be subjected to biomethanation and cow dung slurry can be used as inoculum. Even at a lower inoculum: substrate ratio of 1:2, the system could be started up yielding substantial amount of biogas coupled with good TS reduction. Performance of field scale Up-flow Anaerobic Hybrid Bioreactors (UAHBR) was assessed by operating them at different HRTs of 10, 7, 5, 3 and 2 day. During the study an interruption of 2 months in operation occurred due to shut down of the processing unit due to Covid 19. After interruption of 2 months reactor recovered within one month and it proved that hybrid bioreactor could be restarted easily after a shutdown for few months. Reactor was stable in operation during 10, 7, 5, 3 and 2 day HRTs and exhibited good process efficiency with better pollutant reduction and biogas production. Performance was seen deteriorated beyond 5 day HRT. The bioreactors were operated successively at reduced loading rates corresponding to the longer HRTs after reaching the shortest HRT of 2 day. It was observed that there was no considerable difference in daily biogas production with the earlier values obtained during the progressive decrease in HRT. This revealed that the bioreactors would have achieved the maximum possible microbial population already and there was no further improvement in performance on further passage of time. The performance parameters obtained in the investigations with field scale reactors were used for evolving guidelines to design a full scale anaerobic bioreactor. The UAHBR performance was quite satisfactory at 5 day HRT with respect to pollutant reduction as well as energy production. Hence as criteria, full scale plant was proposed to be operated at 5 day and the corresponding reactor volume was 27 m 3 with 7.2 m 3 gas holder volume. The biogas expected to be produced from the full scale plant can be used in a biogas fired rubber sheet dryer which can save about 500 kg of fire wood per day currently used for drying rubber sheets.Item Productivity classification of soils under rubber (Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg) in Kerala(Department Of Soil Science And Agricultural Chemistry,College Of Horticulture,Vellanikkara, 2000) Nageswara Rao, D V K; Jose, A IItem Price behaviour of natural rubber in India.(Department of Agricultural Economics, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 2011) Reeja Varghese; Satheesh Babu, KNatural rubber, a product of vital commercial importance is recovered from the latex of the rubber tree, Hevea braziliensis. The present study entitled “Price behaviour of natural rubber in India” was conducted during 2010-11 based on the secondary data. The changes in area, production and productivity status of natural rubber in the world, India and Kerala were studied using the index numbers and compound growth rates. The compound growth rates in area, production and productivity of natural rubber in India were below the global growth rates, while that of Kerala was above the national level. India is emerging as the second largest consumer of natural rubber in the world. Consumption status of natural rubber in India showed that there is a growing deficit between domestic production and consumption of natural rubber in India. India was not a regular exporter of natural rubber, and therefore considerable fluctuations were observed in the export status depending on the domestic production level. The deficit in demand was met by imports. The import of natural rubber by Indian automobile industries grew annually by 12.37 per cent during the study period. The secular, seasonal, cyclical and irregular variations in rubber prices were studied using the techniques of classical decomposition of time series analysis. The trend in rubber prices in the domestic market at Kottayam and international market at Bangkok were captured by the single exponential smoothing model satisfactorily. The analysis showed that the RSS-4 prices in the Bangkok as well as the Kottayam markets were stagnant from January 1995 to April 2001, after which the prices showed an upward trend. The rubber prices were subjected to considerable seasonal variations due to the seasonality in production. In the international market, the peak price was observed in June and the trough price during the month of July, whereas in Kottayam market, the peak price was observed during May and the lowest price in the month of February. The rubber prices in the international as well as domestic markets were not subjected to pronounced price cycles. There were considerable irregular variations in rubber prices in both the markets. The rubber prices exhibited considerable instability in both the markets. Out of the different price forecasting models used to develop a reliable price forecasting model, the artificial neural network (ANN) model was found to be more reliable for predicting the price of RSS-4 in Kottayam market. However, no model could capture the underlying dynamics of rubber prices in the international market at Bangkok satisfactorily. The export competitiveness of Indian natural rubber was measured using nominal protection coefficient (NPC) under exportable hypothesis. It was found that Indian natural rubber was not export competitive during the study period. The market integration studies showed that Kottayam and Bangkok markets were integrated and there was a unidirectional influence of Bangkok market on the prices of natural rubber in Kottayam market, while the influence of Kottayam market on Bangkok market could not be established. The policy interventions suggested based on the study include efforts to increase the area under natural rubber in the non traditional rubber growing areas like North Eastern states, evolving technologies for enhancing the productivity of natural rubber in India to increase the income of farmers per unit cultivated area, improved tapping techniques to extend the tapping days, and to develop a multivariate price forecasting model. A reliable, regional market intelligence system for the natural rubber growers in the country to provide timely and reliable market information and intelligence is also suggested.Item Impact of additional incentive scheme for rubber in Assam(Department of Plantation Crops and Spices, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 1992) Rabi Ram Baro; Nazeem, P AAn attempt was made in this study to evaluate the impact of additional incentive scheme for rubber in Assam. There were four Rubber Board Regional Offices in the State and one Zonal Office at Guwahati. All the available data were collected from the above offices. In the surveyed area, the impact of various additional incentives was studied and interpreted.Item Studies on intercroppng in rubber plantation with ginger, plantain & gingelly in Taliparamba taluk(Department of Plantation Crops and Spices, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 1992) Simon, P C; Naseem, P AThe average area of a rubber grower in Kerala is less than two hectares. He will have to wait for at least six years to get income from rubber. For the full canopy development, rubber takes four years and the interspace could be utilized for intercropping with remunerative crops during the initial three years.Item Evaluation of rubber seed meal in broiler diets(Department of Poultry Science, College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences, Mannuthy, 1978) Radhamma Pillai, A; Venugopalan, C KAn experiment was conducted to study the utility of three levels of rubber seed meal in broiler diets. Two hundred, one-day old commercial broiler chicks were divided randomly in to eight groups of twenty five chicks each to form four treatments of two replicates each. The four dietary treatments contained 0, 15, 20 and 30 per cent RSM.Item Leaf litter addition and nutrient recycling in two clones of rubber (Hevea brasiliensis Muell. Arg.) at Vellanikkara estate of Kerala Agricultural University(Department of Plantation Crops and Spices, College of Horticulture, Vellanikkara, 1994) Rajan, S; Nazeem, P AThe present study deals with the quantification of leaf litter addition and nutrient recycling in two clones of rubber in the Vellanikkara Estate of kerala Agricultural University , Trichur . Two different methods of collection were adopted for litter collection in both the clones RRII 105 and RRII 118. Wintering was found to start on 23rd November, 1993 for clone RRII 105 and continued till 12th February , 1994 whereas in RRII 118 wintering strated by 25th November, 1993 and continued till 17th February , 1994. Peak leaf fall was noticed in the month of January for RRII 105 whereas it was in the month of February in the case of RRII 118. Thus clonal variation do exist for the wintering pattern. The total leaf litter production was estimated to the 4954.297 kg for RRII105 and 4584.558 kg for RRII 118. The nutrients contributed through leaf litter during wintering in the clone RRII 105 were 72 kg N, 2 kg p, 57 kg K, 59 kg ca and 12kg mg whereas for the clone RRII 118 it was 61kg N, 2kg p, 43kg k , 79 kg ca and 9kg mg . The clone RRII 105 contributed more litter as well as nutrients than the clone RRII 118. Contrary to the previous years the nutrient levels in the leaf litter did not follow a regular pattern during the wintering period . The presence of green leaves shed due to high wind velocity resulted in an increased level of nutrients in some collection s. It was also observed that the contribution of N, K and Ca were more during the wintering period whereas p was more prior to peak wintering and Mg was more after peak wintering. Comparison of nutrient status in soil samples collected from the area enclosed by net and outside sites showed that removal of leaf litter resulted in relatively lower levels of soil nutrients in the top soil . The leaf area worked out during the study was 6.44 for the clone RRII 105 and 5.53 for clone RRII118. The study also revealed that enclosing the trees with net is the best method to quantify the leaf litter addition . The expensive and cumbersome procedure of providing nets cannot be replaced by collecting the leaf litter from a marked area provided with 15 cm high fencing . The leaf litter accumulated in the fenced area was always less and varied from 27 to 71 per cent of the quantity of litter collected by providing net to cover the canopy all around the trees.Item Prediction of futures prices of rubber(Department of Rural Banking and Finance Management, College of Co-operation, Banking and Management, Vellanikkara, 2009) Anjaly, K N; Molly JosephThe present study entitled “PREDICTION OF FUTURES PRICES OF RUBBER” was conducted with the following objectives i) to examine the price movements of rubber futures through NMCE; ii) to predict the rubber futures prices and iii) to compare the forecasting performance of univariate and multivariate models. Futures trading perform two important functions - price discovery and hedging of price risk, hence an effort to predict the futures prices of rubber, a predominant crop of Kerala, is of contemporary significance to the rubber growers and traders. The study was based on secondary data. Futures prices of daily open, low, high, close and spot and volume traded of rubber were collected for a period from April 2003 to August 2008 from National Multi Commodity Exchange. The daily data were converted into monthly averages for the analysis. The price movements of rubber futures have been examined using ordinary line graph, correlation, candlestick chart, Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) and ANOVA. Correlation has been found inorder to measure the relation between the domestic rubber prices and the crude oil prices. ANOVA was used to find the significance in the growth rate of rubber prices over different time periods. Prediction of futures prices of rubber has been done using the Multiple Linear Regression, Principal Component Analysis and ARIMA and the results of these models were compared to measure the forecasting performance of these models. The price movements of rubber futures using the line graph showed that both the spot and futures prices were highly related and hence prediction of one with the other is possible. Rubber is an internationally traded commodity and the hike in the rubber prices globally influence the domestic the rubber pries. Moreover the rise in the crude oil prices influenced the natural rubber prices, since the movements of domestic rubber prices and the crude oil prices showed a positive correlation. The volumes traded were also fluctuating over the years. The ban on futures trading in rubber drastically reduced the volume traded due to loss of investors’ confidence. Candlestick chart showed that the prices were fluctuating with bullish, bearish and neutral trend. Even though the rubber prices increased, the growth rate of rubber prices and volume traded over the years revealed a lower annualized gain making it clear that there was no abnormal hike in the rubber prices. Hence the rise in rubber prices cannot be attributed to futures trading. The prediction of futures prices of rubber were done by different forecasting models, viz., ARIMA, MLR and PCA. MLR got R square and adjusted R square of 92.1 per cent and 91.5 per cent both values showing the significance of the model for predicting the futures prices. Even though the value of R square is very high none of the regression coefficients were significant in the multiple linear regression model. This might be due to the multicollinearity of the independent variables viz; open, high, low and volume traded which are highly correlated. Hence the principal component analysis was done. The R square and Adjusted R square for the regression equation fitted using the Principal components as regressor are 91.7 per cent and 91.6 per cent respectively. So with P1 ie., the first component generated using open price, it was able to predict 91.7 per cent of the variation in the close price of rubber futures. The ARIMA results got R square of 99 per cent wth MAPE 1.97 per cent indicating that the forecasting inaccuracy was very low and the Normalized Bayesian Criteria (BIC) of 10.478 indicated goodness of fit of the model and the accuracy of the prediction. While comparing the results of MLR, PCA and ARIMA, it was found ARIMA performed better in prediction. Also the forecasting errors of ARIMA were negligible indicating the forecasting efficiency of the model. Hence the study concluded that the univariate model outperforms the multivariate model with better accuracy in prediction.Item Commodity futures - a study of online trading in rubber(Department of Rural Banking and Finance Management, College of Co operation and Management, Vellanikkara, 2007) Anu S Nair; Padmini, E V KThe present study entitled “COMMODITY FUTURES A STUDY OF ONLINE TRADING IN RUBBER” was conducted with the following objectives. 1) To examine the price movements of rubber futures through National Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd. (NMCE). 2) To assess the impact of futures trading on farming decisions of rubber farmers; and 3) To identify the determinants of online trading by rubber farmers. Primary and secondary data have been used for the study. Daily data of rubber futures in NMCE and the corresponding spot prices were collected from the website of NMCE. The data regarding the area production, yield, export, import, major producing countries and major consuming countries were collected from the souvenir of publications of Rubber Board, Economic Survey and website of tire review. Primary data to analyse the impact of futures trading and to identify the determinants were collected using a structured interview schedule. The sample respondents constituted 33 trading farmers from the districts of Kottayam, Palakkad and Thrissur and another group of 33 non-trading farmers from the district of Kottayam. The trend in area production, and yield were analysed using compound growth rate and percentage change over the previous year. The compound growth rate of area under rubber is found to be 8.2 per cent during the period 1950-51 to 2004-05. Although in absolute terms production has been increasing, there has been a decreasing trend since 1999-2000 till 2001-02. The compound growth rate of production comes to 16.36 per cent. The productivity of natural rubber recorded a continuous growth over the period except in 1999-2000 to 2001-02. The compound growth rate for yield works out to 7.47 per cent. A look into the global natural rubber scenario revealed that Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia are the leading producers and they together constitute about 77 per cent of the global production. India is the fourth largest producer and consumer of natural rubber. China tops the list of consuming countries. The major exporters are Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia and the major importers are China, USA and Japan. The analysis of the commodity derivatives market in India revealed that out of the three National Commodity Exchanges, National Multi Commodity exchange is the first exchange. All these three exchanges are multi commodity exchanges. The commodity exchanges are regulated by forward markets commission which is coming under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, food and nutrition. To analyse the objective of examining the price movements of rubber futures through NMCE the co-integration technique is used. The results revealed that the futures prices of two months prior to delivery (F2) one month prior to delivery (F1) and delivery month (F0) are efficient in predicting the spot prices of rubber and prediction using futures price three months prior to delivery (F3) is not effective. The impact of futures trading on the farm management practices of the rubber farmers were analysed using simple percentages and averages. The study revealed that there is no change in any of the activity undertaken by the rubber farmers before and after commencement of futures trading. The non-trading farmers are enjoying the economics of large scale operations. Also the only positive change of the futures trading is their awareness about the storing facilities available at Central Warehousing Corporation eventhough they are not using that facility. The influence of private traders in marketing the product is as high as Rubber co-operative Marketing Society and Rubber Producers Society. No exploitation was faced by any of the farmers as they are educated farming community having better bargaining power. The futures trading could not make a considerable impact on the farming decisions of rubber farmers because they are not at all interested in delivery and so they are least bothered about the underlying asset. They consider futures trading as an avenue for speculation where they can bet on the price movements. For identifying the determinants of online trading by rubber farmers, Kendall’s coefficient of concordance was applied. Accessibility to trading terminal, awareness creation and computer literacy were found the most important determinants of futures trading. There are some differences in the ranks assigned by trading and non-trading members. Availability of warehousing facility, procedure formalities and speculative nature were found least important determinants. Starting of terminal outlets in remote areas, extensive campaign for awareness creation about futures trading and computer education to remove the aversion towards screen based trading will attract move number of participants to futures trading. Compulsory delivery of the underlying asset is to be enforced by the regulatory authorities to make the real farmers the beneficiaries of futures trading and thereby ensuring a remunerative price.