International Agricultural Engineering Journal

Publications in this journal

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  ABSTRACT: Spinach (Spincicia oleracea L.), is highly perishable and one of the most important leafy vegetables widely used for culinary purpose. Its preservation can prevent huge wastage as well as make it available in the lean season. The mechanical drying involves higher cost of drying and open sun drying, which deteriorates the quality. Thus, the need for an intermediate level technology was realized and an effort was made to dry the spinach in small scale solar tunnel dryer (STD). STD temperature was 15-17°C higher than ambient air temperature. In months of February and March the range of STD temperature and relative humidity was 30-47°C, 20%-52% and 40-55°C, 14%-50%, respectively. The spinach was dried from initial moisture content 88.21%-94.04% (w.b.) to final moisture content 3.50%-5.13 % (w.b.). Total drying time was in range of 6.3 to 10.0 h. The drying time was considerably reduced as compared to open sun drying of spinach as sun drying took 15 h for drying. The dehydration ratio of the spinach varied from 9.083 to 21.177. The collector efficiency, drying efficiency and overall efficiency were in the range of 28.73%-61.15%, 11.63%-22.13% and 7.61%-14.66%, respectively. The logarithmic model was found best to describe the drying behavior of spinach.
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  ABSTRACT: The impact of rainfall regimes and crop management practices in the rainfed uplands of the Cagayan Valley region, Northern Philippines was examined. The primary goal of the study is to evaluate the performance and adaptability of the Water Erosion Prediction Project (WEPP) model in estimating the rate of soil erosion and runoff under upland rice cultivation. The research involves establishment of automatic weather station and erosion plots with three conservation management as treatments. Analysis was undertaken to characterize rainfall events in terms of amount, intensity, duration and frequency in relation to erosion data. Comparison of actual, simulated data and sensitivity analysis of scenarios for different types of rainfall, slope, and conservation, practices was made. The validation results demonstrated...