american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology studies on the incidence of anthracnose disease in different varieties of mango (mangifera indica l.) and it’s in vitro biocontrol measures s. k. ghosh1, s. k. ray2 and m. a. hasan3 abstract anthracnose of mango caused by colletotrichum gloeosporioides) is a very serious disease. leaves, panicles, immature and mature fruits of mango are infected and damaged by this disease. the symptoms of this disease on infected parts were noted. the incidence of disease on leaves was studied on fourteen varieties of mango viz. himsagar, dashehari, vanraj, farnandin, mulgoa, bombai, kishanbhog, bangalora, alphanso, langra, mallika, zardalu, chausa and suvarnrekha. in all the varieties the incidence of anthracnose ranged from 1 15 per cent. the disease incidence was maximum (15.00 per cent) in kishanbhog followed by bombai (12.00 per cent), himsagar (9.00 per cent) and bangalora (8.00 per cent). in contrast, the disease incidence was recorded minimum in alphanso (1.00 per cent). trichoderma viride and beauveria bassiana were applied against colletotrichum gloeosporioides in vitro and their antagonistic activity were recorded. keywords: anthracnose, mango, variety, trichoderma, beauveria ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1mycopathology lab.,p.g. dept. of botany, ramakrishna mission vivekananda centenary college, rahara, kolkata -700118, west bengal, india e-mail: swapan.krghosh@yahoo.com 2dept. of plant pathology, faculty of agriculture, bidhan chanda krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal, india 3dept. of fruits and orchard management, faculty of horticulture, bidhan chanda krishi viswavidyalaya, mohanpur, nadia, west bengal, india 51 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ mailto:swapan.krghosh@yahoo.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction mango (mangifera indica l.) is universally considered one of the most important fruit crop in india. india produces near about 54.2% of world’s mangos and exports rs. 170.71 crore of mangoes in 2008— 09(apeda, 2010). anthracnose, the most important mango disease, is caused by the fungus colletotrichum gloeosporioides. flower blight, fruit rot, and leaf spots are among the symptoms of this disease (arauz, 2000). fruits infected at mature stage carry the fungus into storage and cause considerable loss during storage, transit and marketing (haggag, 2010). generally to combat this disease, fungicides (e.g. bavistin, blitox -50) are applied but fungicides are environmental pollutant. the non-chemical or eco-friendly methods are now popularized in developed countries (america, u.k. etc.). cultivation of disease resistant variety and bio control method are eco-friendly strategies to manage diseases. therefore, the main objectives of this work are to record mango varietal differences in susceptibility to anthracnose and antagonistic efficacy of biocontrol agents trichoderma viride, and beauveria bassiana against colletotrichum gloeosporioides, causal organism of anthracnose of mango in vitro. material and methods a) study of symptoms of anthracnose: the infected leaves, petioles, twigs, panicles, flower and fruits were collected separately in sterilized biodegradable polythene bags and carried in laboratory and the symptoms caused by anthracnose were studied with the help of simple microscope. b) isolation and purification of pathogen from diseased parts : the infected leaves , petioles , twigs , panicles , flower and fruits were collected separately in sterilized biodegradable polythene sheets ,carried in laboratory ,and isolation of the pathogen was done in pda medium in petri dishes at 28o c by the method presented by dhingra & sinclair(1994). for purification of isolated pathogen, single hyphal tip method was taken. c) identification or characterization of the pathogen: the identification of the pathogen was done by cultural and microscopical characteristics with the help of published fungal key and books (nagamani et al., 2006; domsch et al.; bailey and jeger, 1992; freeman et al, 1998). the identifications of isolates of t. viride were done by iari, delhi, india d) pathogenecity test of the pathogen: it was done by koch’s postulates 52 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology e) mango varietal susceptibility test : the anthracnose disease incidence on mango leaves was recorded during the period of flowering and before the fruit set in the years of 2009 & 2010 in the gayaspur farm , under bckv , mohanpure , nadia , west bengal ,india fourteen mango varieties ( himsagar , dasehari , vanraj ,farnandin, mulgoa ,mumbai, krishnabhog, bangalore, alfanso , langra, zardalu, chausa, mallika and suvarnrekha ) were screened in randomized block for the study of incidence of anthracnose. the scale proposed by khalid & alam (2002) was taken to observe the incidence of anthracnose of mango. standard scale for assessment of anthracnose of mango (khalid &alam 2002) disease grading types of symptoms 1—5 % affected leaves per twig per plant -mild 6—10% affected leaves per twig per plant –high 11—15% affected leaves per twig per plant -severe f) isolation and characterization of antagonistic fungi: isolation of fungi from different soils from different geographical regions of west bengal, were done in the laboratory by dilution plate method followed by dhingra & sinclair (1994). fungal colonies were isolated and sub-cultured repeatedly for getting pure colonies and then preserved in slant tubes for further identification. . the fungal strains were identified after staining them with cotton blue, by following the keys of domsch et.al 1980...nagamani et al, (2006) and www.mycobank.org g) antagonistic potentiality test or rating of mycoparasitism of isolated antagonistic fungi: five mm diameter of mycelial colony from the margin of actively growing colony of c. gloeosporioides and that of antagonist were incubated simultaneously at opposite ends of a petri dish containing 25 ml of sterilized pda medium. the plates containing the paired culture were incubated at 280 ± 10 c for 9 days in a b.o.d. incubator and were subsequently scored for degrees of antagonism on a 1-5 scale (bell et al., 1982). an isolate of the mycoparasite was considered highly antagonistic to the pathogen when the mean score for a given comparison (when rounded to the nearest whole class number) was ≤2, but not highly antagonistic if the number was ≥ 3. among the class—i antagonists, a comparative analysis was done on the basis of ability of antagonist to grow faster than other over c. gloeosporioides. 53 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 54 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 the selected cultures from pairing of mycoparasitized pathogen were observed under microscope (leitz laborlux k, germany) to study of hyphal interactions between the antagonist and the pathogen and photographed when required. result and discussion symptoms of the disease: i) leaves: on the leaves the symptom starts as circular or oval shaped irregular brownish to black color spots variable in sized( 2-6 mm) .under conducive condition ( humidity >90 and temperature 300c ) the spot increases in size and disease tissues become rotted. during dry weather, the spot cannot enlarge and it becomes dried and drops off (fig. 1). the disease spots are observed on the petiole also. ii) twig: on the young twig black spot appears on the young leaves. during rainy season, the disease rapidly covers the twig causing it to turn black and it becomes dry. iii) inflorescence: spots appears as black, they enlarged and coalesced on the inflorescence or panicle axis, the infected axis becomes dry and withered before fruit set (fig.2). fig .1 symptom on leaves fig.2 symptoms on panicle fig.3 symptom on fruit iv) fruit: the symptoms are found both young as well as mature fruits. black spots are formed on the fruits and their skin becomes discolored. the pulp beneath the infected skin becomes hard (fig3). similar symptoms were recorded by many workers (ploetz, 1994; arauz, 2000; singh 2005). identification of the pathogen: the isolated pathogen was colletotrichum gloeosporioides (penz) (fig.47).the identification of the pathogen was done by cultural and microscopical characteristics with the help of published fungal key and books (nagamani et al., 2006; domsch et al.; bailey and jeger, 1992; freeman et al, 1998). http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology conidia→ seta→ fig. 4 acervulae of c. gloeosporioides fig. 5 conidia & conidiophore fig. 6: conidia of c.gloeosporioides fig. 7: (left) dual culture mango varietal susceptibility test: the presented in the table-1 exhibited that all varieties of mango trees tested were susceptible to anthracnose disease. the maximum (15) per cent of disease incidence (pdi) occurred in the krishanbog followed by bombai (12 per cent), himsagar (9.00 per cent), dashehari (8.50) and bangalora (8.00 per cent). table 1 study of mango varietal susceptible test against anthracnose s. no. mango variety per cent of disease incidence type of disease 2009 2010 average 1 himsagar 08.50* 09.50 09.00 high 2 dashehari 08.75 08.25 08.50 high 3 vanraj 06.00 05.00 05.50 high 4 farnandin 02.00 02.00 02.00 mild 5 mulgoa 05.00 08.00 06.50 high 6 bombai 09.00 15.00 12.00 severe 55 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 7 kishanbog 13.00 17.00 15.00 severe 8 bangalora 08.00 08.00 08.00 high 9 alphanso 01.00 01.00 01.00 mild 10 langra 06.00 09.00 07.50 high 11 mallika, 09.00 06.00 07.50 high 12 zardalu 05.50 06.50 06.00 high 13 chausa 07.00 09.00 08.00 high 14 suvarnrekha. 05.50 07.50 06.50 high s.em± 0.0012 c.d. (p≤0.05) 0.3130 *average of three replicated plants in contrast, the disease incidence was recorded minimum in alphanso (1.00 per cent). out of fourteen mango varieties, two (farnandin and alphanso) were categorized as mild susceptible while ten varieties (himsagar, deshahari , bangolora chausa,langra, mallika, mulgoa,subarnkeka, zardalu andvanraj were under high. and only two (krisanbag and bombai) were severe susceptible. in the year 2010 per cent of disease incidence was higher in many varieties in comparison to 2009. it is due to prevailing weather during this period. varietal differences in susceptibility have been noted in egypt. maximum damage was observed on alphanso, whereas variety tommi and fagr kelan were recorded to be resistant (haggag, 2010). antagonistic potentiality test or rating of mycoparasites of isolated antagonistic fungi: a total of seven fungal isolates were screened against c. gloeosporioides under in vitro condition by bell’s test (fig.8) for determining mycoparasitic activity. the data presented in the table -2 indicate that all seven isolates were rated as class—i mycoparasites /antagonists .out of them, five isolates(t1.t2.t3,t10 &t12) identified by iari as trichoderma viride .two isolates( bb& b2) were two strains of beauveria bassiana. fig. 8 t10 x pathogen conidia of t viride → shrinkage of protoplast→ 56 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table-2 rating of mycoparasites in dual culture plate by bell’s method. serial no. organism or isolates mean scores i ii iii 1 t1 1.12 (1.00) 2 t2 1.50(1.00) 3 t3 2.00(2.00) 4 t10 1.06(1.00) 5 t12 1.40(1.00) 6 bb 1.80(1.00) 7 b2 2.00(2.00) i=mean of three replications. ii =data are recorded 9 days after incubation. iii =scale of classes described by bell et al. (1982) was followed. ; the figures in parenthesis indicate the whole class. further, the results from table –3 revealed that out of five strains of t. viride ,t10 showed maximum (3.10) mycoparasitism over c. gloeosporioides followed by t12(3.00),t1(1.40) ,t3(1.40) and t2 (1.00). out of two strains of b. bassiana, bb was better than b2 table 3: comparative mycoparasitic activity of different isolates of hyperparasites showing class –i activities against c. gloeosporioides serial no. iari herb. no. organism or isolate scientific name of mycoparasite radial growth(cm) of mycoparasites over c. gloeosporioides at 24 hr. interval 24 48 72 1 108 t1 trichoderma viride 0.70* 1.09 1.40 2 109 t2 trichoderma viride 0.45 0.86 1.00 3 110 t3 trichoderma viride 0.61 1.00 1.30 4 112 t10 trichoderma viride 1.00 2.25 3.10 5 115 t12 trichoderma viride 0.80 2.02 3.00 6 -bb beauveria bassiana 0.20 0.42 1.00 7 -b2 beauveria bassiana 0.15 0.32 0.60 57 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology s.em± 0.093 c.d. (p≤0.05) 0.452 *each insertion is average of three replications kefialew and ayalew( 2008) reported that four isolates of bacteria, five yeasts and two filamentous fungi were evaluated in this study. cell suspensions and culture filtrates of the isolates inhibited spore germination and hyphal growth of c. gloeosporioides in vitro. mango plants treated with trichoderma's pellet and spraying with spore suspension of trichoderma harzianum pc01 and t. hamatum pc02 (404 x 1010) and some chemical fungicide treated ones. it was observed that the biological treatments gave better yield than the chemical fungicides (carbendazim, zinep, manep and copper oxychloride) treatment. (noiaium and soytong, 2010). interaction between trichoderma viride (t10) and c. gloeosporioides under microscope showed that spores of t10 adhered on the wall of c. gloeosporioides and shrinkage of protoplast of the latter were recorded (fig. 9).the fig. 9 depicted that the hyphae of c. gloeosporioides was surrounded by t 10 and the shrinkage of the protoplast of the fig. 9: t10 xpathogen pathogen. similar phenomenons were reported in the interaction between mycoparasites (trichoderma viride) and plant pathogens by other workers (chat et al., 1981; pan and ghosh, 1997). in conclusion, all varieties of mangoes are susceptible to anthracnose from mild to severe. trichoderma viride strains are good biocontrol agents as tested in vitro and this experiment encourages other to apply this biocontrol agent in the field of mango (in vivo). 58 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology references  annonymous (1996). mango orchard survey and research proposal prospects. dept. of hort.univ.agric. faisalabad, pp148  annonymous (1996).national coordinated research project on mango crisis . first annual report dept. of hort.univ.agric. faisalabad, pp: 240  arauz, l.f. (2000). mango anthracnose: economic impact and current options for integrated management, plant dis., 84, 600-611.  apeda (agriculcural and processed food products export development authority), ministry of commerce & industry, government of india, 2010  bailey, j. a. & jeger, m.j. (1992) .colletotrichum: biology, pathology and control. common w. agric. bur. farnham royal, bucks, u.k.  bell, d.k. wells, h. d. & markham,c. r.( 1982 ). in vitro antagonistiism of trichoderma species against six fungal plant pathogens , phytopathology, 72 , 378 –382.  chet i. harman, g.e. & baker, r. (1981). trichoderma hamatum : the hyphal interactions with rhizoctonia solani and pythium sp., microbial ecol., 7 ,29-36.  dhingra, o.d. &sinclair,j.b. (1986).basic plant pathology methods ,crc press, inc .  domsch, k. h.,gams ,w. &anderson , t. h. (1980) . compendium of soil fungi vol. –i & ii, academic press, london.  freeman, s., katan, t. & shabi, e. (1998). characterization of colletotrichum species responsible of anthracnose diseases of various fruits, plant dis.,82,596-981.  haggag,w .m.( 2010). mango diseases, agric. biol. j. n. am., 2010, 1(3), 285-289.  kefialew, y. & amare a. (2008). post harvest biological control of anthracnose.(colletotrichum gloeosporioides) on mango (mangifera indica), post harvest biology and technology ,50(1), 8—11.  khalid, p.a. & alam, s. (2002). assessment key of some important diseases of mango, pak. j. of biological science, 5(2) 246—250.  nagamani, a., kunwar, i. k. & manoharachary, c. (2006). hand book of soil fungi. i.k. international, new delhi, pp 477.  noiaium, s. & soytong, k. (2010). integrated biological control of mango var. choke anan ishc acta horticulture, 509 vi international symposium on mango.  pan s. & ghosh, s k. (1997). antagonistic potential of some soil fungi on phytophthora colocassiae racib. j. mycopathol. res., 35(2), 153-157. 59 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology  ploetz, r.c. (1994). part iii mango pages 33--34 in: compendium of tropical fruit diseases. ploetz, r.c., g.a. zentmyer w.t. nishimjima k.g.roherbach and h.d.ohr, american phytopathological society, st. paul mn.  singh, r. p. (2005).plant pathology, kalyani publishers, new delhi, pp724. 60 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com mobile app for maize: state of the art, potential areas, and future directions in bangladesh roshidul h1, m a haque2, md. mahmudul haque2, tapas r. chakraborty3 abstract the mobile phone is no longer just a communication device, but also an essential part of people’s entertainment and daily life. now android system in the electronics market is becoming more and more popular, especially in the smartphone market. the most popular smartphone application is games followed by listening to music, watching videos, communicating with social media, exploring photos, taking selfies, etc. mobile apps also become more popular than desktop computer-based software. the mobile phone is used for different purposes activities from simple communication to video conferencing, from playing games to the utilization of apps for day to day life. since mobile networks reach every corner of bangladesh, it is now a potential time to use the mobile phone for providing need-based information to the farming communities for their benefit. since bangladesh is an agriculturebased country and most of the farming communities subsist in the northern part of bangladesh. it was found that nilphamari (northern district of bangladesh) suitable area for providing benefits to the farming communities by developing a mobile app. the researchers chose the disease identification and their’ management for the maize crop as maize is the 3rd most common in that area. this paper mainly discussed two sections; 1. the application interface in the bengali language with multimodal function; text, voice with the local language, and images; 2. feedback from the users about the app. it was found that most of the end-users were able to properly identify the diseases and manage them well. keywords: mobile apps, maize, maize app 1 department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh, roshidul.hasan@gmail.com 2 department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh 3 ict and development, oxfam in bangladesh introduction the android operating system is becoming more and more popular in the current communication era especially in the smartphone environment. most popular smartphone application is games followed by listening music, watching videos, communicating with social media, exploring photos, taking selfie, etc (m. butler, 2011). mobile apps also become popular than the desktop computer based software. and multimodal conversation becomes daily activities for mobile phone users. these advances have extended the initial application domains of conversational interfaces to complex information retrieval and question answering applications (metze et al., 2014), ecommerce systems (tsai, 2005), surveys applications (stent et al., 2006), in-car systems (hofmann et al., 2014), remote control of devices and robots in smart environments (minker et al., 2010), elearning and tutoring systems (kopp et al., 2012), communication within vehicles (misu et al., http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 2015), ambient assisted living systems (bickmore et al., 2010), recommendation systems (reschke et al., 2013), or virtual companions (horchak et al., 2014). griol et.el. (2016) proposed two techniques for developing conversational agents using well-known standards and operative systems, voicexml or android and found android is the best solution. after critically analyze from the above statistics from world bank report (2017), it can easily be remarked the usability and availability of mobile communication to the mass people in south asian region. the mobile phone is using now for different purpose activities from simple communication to video conferencing, from play games to utilization of apps for day to day life. since mobile network reach to every corner in bangladesh, it is now potential time to use the mobile phone for providing need based information to the farming communities for their benefit. agriculture has been the mainstay of this country since the beginning of its civilization, and communities have been established in the bank of rivers and beside fertile lands. traditional crop varieties and cultivation practices have been sufficient to feed the population from the expansion. with the blast of population increase, the extend of land utilization expanded and after few centuries, now free lands are decreasing due to expand our cultivation on them. scientists are now emphasizing adopting measurements which could reduce the gap between the field yield and potential yield of the crop. bearing these factors in mind, many research attempts are in progress to manage the inputs and other factors properly, and manage the factors properly. timely supply of crop and location specific information is a must to recommend appropriate and precise management, where mobile app can come as a savior. the government of bangladesh is (gob) passed the ict policy in 2009 updated as ict policy 2015 and aims to build digital bangladesh, an ict driven nation comprising knowledge-based society by the year 2021. the gob also passed set 7th five year plan in 2015 for fy2016-2020 to knowledge into economy (ged 2015). with the recent advancement of smart technology in everybody’s smartphone, farmers are just a click away to reach for its solution. researchers has already made some attempts on this field as well through developing mobile app for smartphone but none came as effective as to offer solution to specific problems to different field environment. crop specific mobile apps can ensure desired information supply to the farmer to take actions against the encountered problem. technology is not a fancy thing now a days. almost everybody owns a smartphone running on android os. it was found nilphamari (northern district of bangladesh) suitable area for providing benefit to the farming communities by developing an mobile app. the diseases identification and its’ management of maize crop was choosen as maize was the 3rd most common of that area and rising crop in bangladesh. the mobile phone uses and users in south asian counties increasing very fast. according to the world bank report (2017), the subscription of mobile cellular increased from 0 per 100 people in 1969 to 78 per 100 people in 2015. buddecomm (2016) published their report for 2016 on mobile communication in title of the report “mobile subscriber growth in bangladesh continues” stated that the mobile subscriber growth rate in bangladesh has been strong between 2011 and 2016. the report also found, the mobile market penetration increased from 55% in 2011 to 80% in 2014, 84% in 2015 and 87% in 2016. from the same report it was found that the mobile subscription rate is increasing in bangladesh and international voice traffic minutes per person through mobile phones dramatically increased to 236 per 100 people (stated in fig 1). 2 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology fig 1: development flow of mobile subscribers and it network cover over population methodology the research work was conducted at the department of computer science and information technology in bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur and the selected study area was at dakshin kharibari, dimla, nilphamari district, bangladesh from june 2015 to november 2016. the research had conducted a survey among 46 respondents for beta testing and compatibility analysis. according to the study, it was found that out of 46 respondents, 26 were female and 20 other were male. the main research instruments were i) primary information of principle respondent ii) experience of mobile app usage. result and discussion usability of mobile app after having every information correctly spelled and improving the content for better understanding, authors conducted a survey among 46 respondents for beta testing and compatibility analysis. according to the study, it was found that out of 46 respondents, 26 were female and 20 other were male. 0 236 65 654 0 38 9890 99 93 100 85 86 98 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 mobile cellular subscriptions per 100 people in 2015 mobile cellular network international voice traffic minutes per person in 2014 population covered by mobile cellular network % in 2015 3 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 1: gender of the respondents number percent male 20 43.5 female 26 56.5 total 46 100.0 out of the 46 respondents, it was found that 43 of them were using smartphones, and other three didn’t use smartphone, and all of them were female respondents. among the other respondents, 4 of them were using smartphone other than android, and all of them were female. as the mobile app was compatible with android os, they were not able to install the app on their phone. among the other respondents having android os phones, everybody was able to install the app, however 15 of them could not run the app on their phone. later the researchers investigated the issue and found that their android version was jelly bean or older, which was very old to run the app. hence, it was noted the finding was a bug to conduct improvement operation. another interesting finding was that, respondents were reluctant to use smartphone for agricultural problem solving, though 93.5% respondent had smartphone. study shows that 34 respondents did not use smartphone for their problem-solving media, and 21 of them were female. however, in this research the researchers had provided android smartphone to everybody to conduct the study, and it was found that 87% of the respondents were comfortable to navigate through the options of the app to study the contents and used to identify the diseases. table 2: percentile of respondents able to navigate through the app frequency percent yes 40 87.0 no 6 13.0 total 46 100.0 more importantly, 95.7% of the respondents were able to find the solution of the problem using mobile app that provided to them, and the same percentile of respondents were able to understand the solution as well. these findings were ensuring the suitability of the algorithm to develop the app and the content for the app. all the respondents opined that this app was suitable for the farmers for solving their problem, and 87% of them agreed that the existing content was sufficient to solve the problem on their field regarding the diseases places on our app. 4 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology mobile app for disease identification and management: the visual architecture of the app was aiming at letting farmers detect the crop diseases using user friendly systematic manner. the detection system was guided through visual aid comprising identical image of original plant growth stage, plant parts and disease symptom. for classification of maize growth stages, the authors had divided the growth stage into four classes (cimmyt, 2015) viz. 1. seedling growth stage, 2. vegetative growth stage, 3. flowering and fertilization stage, and 4. grain filling and maturity stage. in this research, later used representative real photo of the plant growth stages as text classification may not be understandable for the farmers. fig. 2 shows the representative plant parts of the different growth stages in the app. fig 2: representing the plant parts of the different growth stages in the app. after growth stage selection, there comes the choice of navigating the exact area of infestation in the plant. disease and insect infestation type varies based on the growth stage and part of the plant. for better detection, it was divided the plant diagram into three parts, viz. upper part consisting young leaf, and cob during later stages, middle part where mature leaf, stem, and tassel during flowering stage, and lower part which consists of root and part of the stem in touch of the soil. fig. 3 illustrates the plant parts in the application which were used for selection of the disease. the later step involves display of probable disease symptoms for this part of the plant at the selected growth stage of maize plant. fig. 4 shows the probable disease symptoms of a maize plant in the upper part of the plant can occur during the maturity stage of the plant. this collection consists of both disease and pest infestations altogether, so that the farmers can easily select the disease properly visually. the thumbnail collection helps the farmer visually identify the disease which matches the symptom he observed on the field. 5 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology fig. 3: the plant parts for better filtering of the disease fig. 4.: the probable disease symptoms of a maize plant in the upper part of the plant can occur during the maturity stage of the plant and management needs. 6 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology suitability of using the app respondents found the app very handy to browse through the option, check different parameters and extract results. from the fig. 5, it was evident that, among the whole respondents, almost 96% of them were able to navigate through the different selection criteria to find the solution of a maize disease. rest 4% were having issues navigating through the options, though few of them mentioned their lack of understanding the criteria as they were not maize crop grower. so it indicates the suitability of usage for the maize crop growers. fig. 5: illustration of the suitability of using the app among the respondents understanding disease solutions through app as it was for the case of navigation, respondents were also able to find solution of the disease they were looking for and number was similar the successful user to navigate properly (fig. 6). fig. 6: illustration of the understandability of the disease solutions among the respondents respondents were quite able to understand the solution mentioned in the app against each disease. only a few respondents had hard time understanding, though majority found the solutions quite easy to understand. 7issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology effectiveness of the app the feedback on the effectiveness of the app for the farmers were very much satisfactory, as nobody mentioned the app as ineffective. according to fig. 7, around 52% respondents reported it as effective, while other 48% respondent reported it as very much effective. fig. 7: effectiveness response of the respondents regarding the app suitability to find solution to diseases in regard of the suitability of the app for the farmers, it was a fantastic record as everybody reported the app was very much applicable to the farmers for getting the solution of the problems they encounter in their field. the richness of the collection of the disease and corresponding solution was not covering all the possible diseases, and respondents opined accordingly. fig. 8: suitability of the app to find disease solutions as it had most of the commonly encountered disease, that was why 87% of the total respondents mentioned the collection as sufficient to find solution of diseases (fig. 8). the rest 13% respondent however wanted to have all the disease information and reported alike. 8 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology conclusion disease identification and it’s management for maize was not very common for the farmers in the northern part of bangladesh. mobile apps with audio-image and local language (bengali) content found very effective and 95.7% of the respondents were able to find the solution of the disease using mobile app that provided to them, and the same percentile of respondents were able to understand the solution as well. these findings were ensuring the adaptability of local language and audioimage based mobile apps for the farming communities. finally, total of 87% of respondents were agreed that the existing content was sufficient to solve the problem on their field regarding the diseases identification and management. reference: buddecomm report (2016). bangladesh telecoms, mobile and broadband statistics and analyses: mobile subscriber growth in bangladesh continues. accessed on 3 january 2017 from https://www.budde.com.au/research/bangladesh-telecoms-mobile-and-broadbandstatistics-and-analyses bickmore, t., puskar, k., schlenk, e., pfeifer, l., and sereika, s. (2010). maintaining reality: relational agents for antipsychotic medication adherence. interacting with computers, 22:276–288. cimmyt (2015). maize growth stages. accessed on 12 january 2016 from http://maizedoctor.org/maizegrowth-stages ged (2015): seventh five year plan fy2016 – fy2020: accelerating growth, empowering citizens. general economics division (ged), planning commission, government of the people’s republic of bangladesh. 2015 griol d. and josé manuel molina (2016). from voicexml to multimodal mobile apps: development of practical conversational interfaces. advances in distributed computing and artificial intelligence journal. 5(2), 43-53 horchak, o., giger, j.-c., cabral, m., and pochwatko, g. (2014). from demonstration to theory in embodied language comprehension: a review. cognitive systems research, 29-30:66–85. kopp, k., britt, m., millis, k., and graesser, a. (2012). improving the efficiency of dialogue in tutoring. learning and instruction, 22(5):320–330. the world bank report (2017). world development indicator: power and communications. accessed on 27 january 2017 from http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/5.11 tsai, m. (2005). the voicexml dialog system for the e-commerce ordering service. in proc. of cscwd’05, pp. 95–100. stent, a., stenchikova, s., and marge, m. (2006). reinforcement learning of dialogue strategies with hierarchical abstract machines. in proc. of slt’06, pp. 210–213. reschke, k., vogel, a., and jurafsky, d. (2013). generating recommendation dialogs by extracting information from user reviews. in proc. of acl’13, pp. 499–504. minker, w., heinroth, t., strauss, p., and zaykovskiy, d. (2010). human-centric interfaces for ambient intelligence, chapter spoken dialogue systems for intelligent environments, pp. 453–478. elsevier. misu, t., raux, a., gupta, r., and lane, i. (2015). situated language understanding for a spoken dialog system within vehicles. computer speech and language, 34:186–200. metze, f., anguera, x., barnard, e., davel, m., and gravier, g. (2014). language independent search in mediaeval’s spoken web search task. computer, speech and language, 28(5):1066–1082. 9 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://journals.e-palli.com/ https://www.budde.com.au/research/bangladesh-telecoms-mobile-and-broadband-statistics-and-analyses https://www.budde.com.au/research/bangladesh-telecoms-mobile-and-broadband-statistics-and-analyses http://maizedoctor.org/maize-growth-stages http://wdi.worldbank.org/table/5.11 microsoft word 63-full article-139-1-2-20210511 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agro-forestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science experimental agriculture food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 63 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org a machine learning-based price prediction for cows md atiquer rahman1 , md alamgir kabir2 , md. ezazul haque3, b m mainul hossain4 institute of information technology, university of dhaka, dhaka, bangladesh doi: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4817941 abstract as bangladesh is an agricultural country, cows have a great influence on our economy. however, there is no cow-related work or dataset accessible online in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence. this study aims to predict cow price ranges using any cow picture. cow images were collected from different online e-commerce sites which are selling cows and mainly attempted to predict the price range of cows based on the images of the cows. cows are divided into four classes based on their price range namely low, medium, high, and very high classes. a machine learning-driven approach has been taken for the prediction where convolutional neural network (cnn) is used as an image classifier and linear regression is used for predicting the prices. our result shows that the price range of a cow can be predicted with an accuracy of 70%. 14th year student, institute of information technology, university of dhaka, dhaka, bangladesh; email: bsse0908@iit.du.ac.bd 24th year student, institute of information technology, university of dhaka, dhaka, bangladesh; email: bsse0907@iit.du.ac.bd 34th year student, institute of information technology, university of dhaka, dhaka, bangladesh; email:bsse0923@iit.du.ac.bd 4associate professor, institute of information technology (iit),university of dhaka, bangladesh; email: mainul@iit.du.ac.bd american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 64 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 1. introduction price prediction is difficult regarding the complex behavior of price signaling and datasets. but it has a great socioeconomic value. almost 80% of people in our country bangladesh live in rural areas. as they live in villages, they mainly depend on agriculture for their livelihoods. that’s why cows are the most domestic animal in almost every house in the village. on the other hand, bangladesh is a muslim-majority country with significant demand for cows. so, cows have a great impact on the economy. people who are unaware of the price of cows, on the other hand, are often defrauded when selling and purchasing cows. so, a tool that predicts the cows’ prices can be helpful to know about the prices of cows before selling and buying and the chance of deception will be reduced. therefore, this work aims to predict the price of cows according to the image. along with the images, some other attributes have also been considered.predict of price is always a tough task. here, the prediction of livestock like a cow’s price class is more difficult than other price prediction tasks. a lot of works has already been done by machine learning engineers for price predictions such as stock price prediction, house price prediction, beef meat price, etc. from the images using in cnn. but a few works on cattle price prediction. in this paper cows' price range will be predicted. s. u. rehman proposed an unsupervised cnn architecture for face image classification. by combining cnn with other modules and algorithms, a cnn capable of multitasking (e.g., facial detection and emotional classification) is developed. n. jain et al. proposed a hybrid deep cnn and rnn (recurrent neural network) model. the aim of this model is to improve the overall performance of image category detection. convnets can learn these channels/highlights with satisfactory preparation. although some papers advocate for the use of unsupervised cnn, supervised learning is more suitable for this initiative. 2. methodology firstly, a dataset is created by web scraping, then we preprocessed the dataset for implementing the algorithms. then used cnn and linear regression to predict the price. the detail is as follow, 2.1 background cnn a convolutionary neural arrange (convnet / cnn) may be a profound learning algorithm, which permits an input picture to require on diverse viewpoints / objects and can be recognized from one picture (learnable weights and inclinations). convnet requires much less preprocessing than other classification calculations. whereas the channels are hand-made in primitive strategies, convnets can learn these channels / highlights with adequate training. the convnet design is comparable to that of neurons within the human brain and was impacted by the visual cortex association. inside a restricted region of the visual eld known as the open field, as it where person neurons react to jolts. the whole visual zone is secured by a choice of these areas. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 65 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org modules numpy, pandas, matplotlib, os, pil, tensorflow, ktrain modules are used in this work. data collection & processing price range detection is the process of automatically discerning the price of a cow solely from a photo of its full body. typically, you’ll see price detection implemented as a three-stage process: stage 1: data collection via web scraping stage 2: data processing adding cow price added in cow image path converting images into 256 stage 3: extract the price region of interest (roi), and apply the price predictor algorithm to predict the price of the cow. there are 6 features(image,height,age,color,class) in the database and one dependent variable(price). first cow price is added in the cow image path so that a relationship between cow price and cow images can be built. finally add four features(height, age, teeth, and color) inside the image header. divide the whole database into the train (80%) and test (20%) datasets. then pass images in cnn. color is an example of a categorical attribute. as a result, color was used after encoding. here, mainly tried to predict the price range of cows according to the images of the cows. four classes are defined based on their price range. low (price <75000 taka), medium(75000<price≤150000), high(150000<price≤250000) and very high (price>250000) class. image processing image processing is a technique of performing operations on an image in order to improve it or obtain valuable information from it. this is a method of signal processing in which taking an image as input, and giving outputs as an image or some features. reading image from dataframe, keeping inside 3d array (256,256,3) and scale image pixel value into 0 to 1. then all images divide into three sets train images, test images, validation images. price prediction with cnn cnn algorithm is used for price range prediction. some interdependent procedures are followed step by step. it is discussed in the below points.first,changing the current directory to the path where image dataset is been stored and then listing the files and directories in the specified path and adding cow price inside cow image path.reading database from csv. split database into train and test datasets. processing images from path and convert them into 252x252x3 arrays and scaling pixel values into 0 to 1. adding others features height; age; teeth; color, with image array. finally, 256*256*3 array is formed. building cnn model. adding conv2d layer with 16 size and 3*3 kernel size, relu activation layer and maxpool2d. adding second conv2d layer with 32 size and 3*3 kernel size ,relu activation layer and maxpool2d.adding 2 dense layer with size 64.finally adding output layer with input size 1.in this work, keras is used and it supports cnn. fit model with train data and validation data. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 66 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 2.2 dataset there is no existing dataset. a dataset is created for this work. library named beautiful soup is used for parsing html and xml documents including markups, non-closed tags. it builds a parse tree for parsed pages that are used for extracting data from html, which makes web scraping easier. data sourcing websites are “amardeshshop.com" and "goruchai.com" which are e-commerce websites. then decipher the information in urls. after that links are sorted which information is used mainly needed. then parse html code with beautiful soup. we make a csv le with six columns. (cow id,image,height,age,teeth,color). the total length of a dataset is 931, out of which 596 is used for training,187 for testing, and 148 for validating the data. one valid image had a shape (256,256,3). we divided the cows into four categories based on price range [low, medium, high,very high]. figure 1: classes training dataset: the training dataset is used as a set of examples used for training a model. 80% of data from dataset is chosen randomly for training the model. validation dataset: a validation dataset helps in the reduction of overfitting.20% of training dataset is chosen for validation. test dataset: the test data collection is used to evaluate the classification or model results and verify the performance of features such as precision, failure, sensitivity and so on. it is independent of the training and validation dataset. 20% of data from dataset is chosen randomly for testing the model. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 67 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 3. result analysis to get result, a user has to input a cow’s height, age, teeth, color, and cow image. input image size must be 256x256 pixels. the model can then predict the price class of a cow. here are some samples of the output result. actual price: 350000 taka actual class: high actual price: 158000 taka actual class: medium actual price: 58000 taka actual class: low actual price: 730000 taka actual class: very high american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 68 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org this work has an accuracy of 70.05%, its precision is 68.69%, recall is 70.05% and the f1 score is 65.73%. the accuracy level can be increased when the dataset will be increased. conclusion in this paper, a model is proposed to perform price class estimation based on cows’ images by using the image classifier cnn (convolutional neural network). almost 1000 data points from different websites related to cows are collected for this process. most of the data points are taken from the website "goruchai.com". 80% of data as training and 20% of data as testing purposes. this study shows an accuracy of 70%. references a. dehghan, e. g. ortiz, g. shu, s. z. masood, dager: deep age, gen-der and emotion recognition using convolutional neural network, corr abs/1702.04280. arxiv:1702.04280. url http://arxiv.org/abs/1702.04280 a. krizhevsky, i. sutskever, g. e. hinton, imagenet classi cation with deep convolutional neural networks, commun. acm 60 (6) (2017) 84{90. doi:10.1145/3065386. url https://doi.org/10.1145/3065386 g. xu, china gold futures price prediction model-from the perspective of the gray prediction, in: 2011 2nd international conference on arti cial intelligence, management science and electronic commerce (aimsec), 2011, pp. 5479{5482. doi:10.1109/aimsec.2011.6009808. h. ebrahimian, s. barmayoon, m. mohammadi, n. ghadimi, the price prediction for the energy market based on a new method, economic researchekonomska istrazivanja 31 (1) (2018) 313{337. arxiv:https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2018.1429291, doi:10. 1080/1331677x.2018.1429291. url https://doi.org/10.1080/1331677x.2018.1429291 h. liu, b. song, stock price trend prediction model based on deep resid-ual network and stock price graph, in: 2018 11th international sympo-sium on computational intelligence and design (iscid), vol. 02, 2018, pp. 328{331. doi:10.1109/iscid.2018.10176. i. parmar, n. agarwal, s. saxena, r. arora, s. gupta, h. dhiman, l. chouhan, stock market prediction using machine learning, in: 2018 first international conference on secure cyber computing and com-munication (icsccc), 2018, pp. 574{576. doi:10.1109/icsccc.2018. 8703332. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 69 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org j. mu, f. wu, a. zhang, housing value forecasting based on machine learning methods, abstract and applied analysis 2014 (2014) 648047. doi:10.1155/2014/648047. url https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/648047 l. bork, s. v. m ller, forecasting house prices in the 50 states using dynamic model averaging and dynamic model selec-tion, international journal of forecasting 31 (1) (2015) 63{78. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2014.05.005. url: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/ s0169207014000958 mahsa mir, house prices prediction using deep learning, tech. rep. 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objective of this research was to determine the likely climatic factors for boro rice production in bangladesh. in this study we employed traditional ols method and recent bootstrap technique to identify the influential climatic factors on boro rice production. our study revealed that the considered variables rainfalls (rain), maximum temperature (max), minimum temperature (min) and wind speed (wind) have significant effect on boro rice production both by ols and bootstrap method. bootstrap method exhibits lower standard errors in comparison to the ols method indicating that this estimate could be useful in boro rice production of bangladesh. the messages from this study could be useful for the policy makers of the country. 1department of statistics, university of rajshahi, rajshahi-6205, bangladesh email: sprovash@yahoo.com 2laboratory of computational statistics and operations research universiti putra malaysia, 43400 upm serdang, selangor, malaysia 3school of business, james cook university, australia † research student 81ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 keywords: multiple regression, bootstrap technique, climatic factors, boro rice production, ordinary least squares (ols) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction bangladesh is primarily an agriculture based country and its economy largely depends on agriculture. poverty is still a problem for the country. in south asia it is still a problem for the rural people. about 70% of south asia’s population lives in rural areas, and it accounts for about 75% of the poor. most of the rural poor depend on agriculture for their livelihood. agriculture employs about 60% of the labor force in south asia and contributes 22% of regional gross domestic product (world bank). in bangladesh agriculture sector accounts for about 20% of the country’s gross domestic product (gdp). about 90% of the bangladesh people depend on rice for their calories intake. rice is a major source of livelihood in terms of providing food, income and employment in bangladesh. rice occupies the maximum share of agricultural gdp and it employs about 60% of the total labour force (alam et al. 2008; wdi, 2010). because of the increasing demand for food and jobs for many inhabitants, it became necessary for households to embark on agriculture as a means of filling the food demand and supply gap and providing income for other household requirements. in addition, the practice of agriculture has continued to increase in recent years with the structural adjustment of the bangladeshi economy. the rise in food price, un-employment and inflation brought by the structural adjustment (world bank, 1990) and the decline in the average real income of both rural and urban households have completed many in to farming areas. among all other cereal crops, boro rice has the largest share in the domestic food grain production of the country (wep, 2011). since 1999-2000, boro contributes more than half of the total rice production in bangladesh. currently boro occupies about 41% of total rice area and contributes 56% of total rice production in bangladesh (deb et al. 2009). weather and climate are key determinants of the productivity of crops grown in various regions of the world. moreover the forecasts of crop production for the coming season require accurate seasonal weather forecasting (challinor, et al. 2003). climate change is anticipated to have for reaching effects on the sustainable development of developing countries including their ability to attain the united nations millennium development goals by 2015 (un 2007). agriculture is extremely vulnerable to climate change (ipcc, 1990), changes in temperature. mendelshon (1994) has examined the impacts of the climate change on agriculture for all countries in the world between 1960 and 2000. according to him, temperature and precipitation has the effect from a loss of 0.05% to a gain of 0.9% of global agricultural gdp. some studies on various aspects of rice production and its influential factors (basorun and fasakin, 2012; karmokar et al., 2012; karmokar and shitan, 2011; nargis and lee, 2013) have been found in the literature. most of the cases they used the econometric time series analyses to conclude their research. karmokar and shitan (2011) studied some influential factors like, annual rainfall, uses of chemical fertilizer, area of cultivation and lag harvest prices on rice production of bangladesh on basis of food and agriculture organisation of the united nations online database (faostat) for the years 1975 to 2003 to identify which factors play a crucial role on the production of rice in bangladesh. as a very simple and widely used technique they considered ols for their study. but sometime ols estimates may be affected by the occurrence of outliers, non-normality, multicollinearity or other causes (ho and naugher, 2000). in reliable aspect bias may create problem for the estimators. bootstrap technique may give the good and minimum biased estimators. as such it would be interested to estimate the bootstrap estimators of parameters along with the ols estimators which could be comparatively less affected by any biased or non-normality of errors. 82ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology methods and materials a brief discussion of data sources ad selected variables are presented in this section. data source and selected variables this study based on the bangladesh meteorological department (bmd) data. the bmd was implemented through a collaborative effort of the bangladesh agricultural research council of the ministry of agriculture, government of the people’s republic of bangladesh. a sample of 40 years (1971 to 2010) has been collected from the meteorological stations in bangladesh. the yield data used in this study have been collected by bangladesh agricultural research council. the predictor variables namely, rainfall in centimeter (rain), maximum temperature in degree celsius (max), minimum temperature in degree celsius (min) and wind speed in meter per second (wind) and the response variable per hectare boro rice production in kilogram (brice) have been used in this study. multiple regression regression analysis is one of the most widely used statistical tools which provide simple methods for establishing a functional relationship among a set of variables. it has extensive use in a variety of areas including agricultural science. in this study we are interested to fit a multiple linear regression model to identify the variables influencing the brice of bangladesh. the under usual assumptions the multiple linear regression model is as follows , (1) where brice is the response variable, rain is the rainfall, max is the maximum temperature, min is the minimum temperature and wind is the wind speed. is the intercept term, , , . . . , are the unknown regression coefficients, and is the error term with a distribution. regression diagnostics sometimes the regression results may mislead the outcomes due to some causes. among them multicollinearity is phenomenon of data set which occurs due to the dependency or any relationship among the predictors variables. in such case the diagnostic, variance inflation factor (vif) may indicate either the data set is infected by milticollinearity problem or not? the vif for independent variables is , , where k is the number of predictor variables and is the square of the multiple correlation coefficient of the jth variable with the remaining (k -1) variables where, 1) if , there is no evidence of multicollinearity problem 2) if , there is a moderate multicollinearity problem and 3) if , there is a seriously multicollinearity problem of variables (chatterjee & hadi, 2006). 83ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology when multicollinearity is present in a set of predictor (explanatory) variables, the ordinary least squares estimation of the individual regression coefficients tend to be unstable and can lead to erroneous inferences. there are some alternative estimation methods that provide a more informative analysis of the data than the ols method when multicollinearity is present. these are (i) dropping of bad variable from analysis (ii) estimation of linear function of regression coefficient (iii) method of estimation by adjusting dependent variable (iv) method of reparametarization of the model (v) principal component regression (vi) ridge regression. bootstrapping method there are mainly two technique of bootstrap, they are (i) fixed x-resampling ( bootstrap-1) (ii) random x-resampling (bootstrap-2) fixed x-resampling (bootstrap-1): when the model matrix x is fixed we can generate bootstrap replication in the following way: step-1: based on an observed sample we have to consider a regression model . step-2: fit the model by the ols denote the estimated by and compute residuals . step-3: resample from to obtain ; step-4: enumerate the response values from the equation ; step-4: estimate the regression parameter by the ols from the model to obtain then the estimated regression coefficient by using fixed xresampling bootstrap technique is the bootstrap bias and variance 84ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the bootstrap bias equals, (for further discussion see efron and tibshirani, 1993). following liu and stine (liu, 1988; stine 1990) the bootstrap variance from the distribution are calculated as the bootstrap confidence interval by normal approach is obtained as , where is the critical value of t with the probability of the right for n-p degrees of freedom and is the standard error of . results discussion we have considered brice, rain, max, min and wind in this research. to have an idea about these variables the summary statistics have been enlisted in the table 1. table 1. summary statistics of study variables variable mean maximum minimum variance skewness kurtosis brice 4443.750 5960.000 3290.000 416285.577 0.810 3.080 max 30.408 31.320 29.410 0.151 0.222 3.582 min 21.106 21.650 20.580 0.073 0.085 2.269 rain 49.993 80.250 23.360 172.922 0.237 2.626 wind 1.252 1.680 0.870 0.049 −0.166 1.985 it is noticed from the results of table 1 that the average of brice is 4443.750, variance is 416285.577 maximum is 5960.000, minimum is 3290.000, skewness is 0.810 and kurtosis is 3.080. for maximum temperature the average is 30.408, variance is 0.151, maximum is 31.320, minimum is 29.410, skewness is 0.222 and kurtosis is 3.582. the average value of minimum temperature is 21.106, variance is 0.073, maximum is 21.650, minimum is 20.580, skewness is 0.085 and kurtosis is 2.269. the average of rain is 49.993, variance is 172.922, maximum is 80.250, minimum is 23.360, skewness is 0.237, kurtosis is 2.626. for wind, average is 1.252, variance is 0.049, maximum is 1.680, minimum is 0.870, skewness is −0.166 and kurtosis is 1.985. therefore, all the variables selected in this study are nonnormally distributed. 85ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology to have an idea about the production trend of boro rice of bangladesh five year production percentages of boro rice among all variety of rice have been computed. a time series plot of these percentages is shown in the figure1. fig 1. five year production percentages of boro rice it is seen from the above figure that the five year production percentages have somewhat an increasing trend. therefore year-wise production of boro rice is increasing in bangladesh. to investigate the relationship among a set of variables, regression is one of the most commonly used statistical techniques. in linear regression, the relationship between two variables can be judged by fitting a linear equation. the multiple linear regression attempts to model the relationship between two or more explanatory variables and a response variable by fitting a linear equation to observed data. the ordinary least squares (ols) method is a way of estimating the parameters of a regression model. we fitted a multiple regression model as given in equation 1 by ols methods and the estimators, t-statistics, p-values and vif are presented in table 2. table 2. ols estimators with vif of multiple regressions predictors coefficient t-value standard error p-value vif rain 6.124 2.251 2.720 0.031 1.351 max 668.679 2.817 237.386 0.008 1.949 min –585.254 –1.798 325.504 0.081 1.779 wind –2029.464 –5.975 339.683 0.000 1.301 in table 2, the estimated value for rain is 6.124 and its t-value is 2.252 with p-value 0.031, the estimated value for max is 668.679and its t-value is 2.817 with p-value 0.008, the 86ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology estimated value for min is –585.254 and its t-value is –1.798 with p-value 0.081, the estimated value for wind is –2029.464 and its t-value is –5.975 with p-value 0.000. although min is significant at 10% level all other variables are significant at 5% level. the vif values for all the variables are less than 5 indicating that there is no such multicolinearity in the data set. the r2 value for this model is 0.634 and the adj r2 value is 0.592. therefore, the predictor variables can explain about 63.4% of total variation by r2 and about 59.2% of total variation by adj. r2. bootstrap is a re-sampling technique used in statistical analyses has been considered in this research. the bootstrap results using same variables as used in the multiple regression model are given in the table 3. table 3. bootstrap results for study variables variable regression coefficient bias standard error p-value 95% confidence interval lower upper brice 6.680 0.570 2.250 0.031 0.880 12.470 max 668.270 –0.400 200.130 0.007 152.720 1183.810 min –586.640 –1.390 264.120 0.072 –1267.030 93.750 wind –2030.720 –1.260 327.870 0.000 –2875.330 –86.110 from bootstrapping result in the above table it is seen that the regression coefficients are approximately same as it was found in the multiple regression model but the standard errors of all the estimators are less than that of multiple regression standard errors. this may be due to bias correction of bootstrap method. hence, we may recommend these estimators as an alternative of ols estimators. conclusion in this research, the objective was to determine the likely climatic factors for boro rice production in bangladesh. our study shows that the considered variables rain, max, min and wind have significant effect on boro rice production of bangladesh both by ols and bootstrap method. the predictor variables can explain about 63.4% of total variation by r2 and about 59.2% of total variation by adj. r2 for ols estimators. due to bias correction, bootstrap method exhibits lower standard errors in comparison to the ols method indicating that this estimate could be useful in agricultural production like boro rice production of 87ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology bangladesh. the results and message could be useful and significant for the policy makers in the agriculture sector of the country. reference basorun, j. o. and fasakin, j. o. (2012). factors influencing rice production in igbemoekiti region of nigeria. journal of agriculture, food and environmental sciences, 5(1). challinor, a.j., slingo, j. m., wheeler, t. r., craufurd, p. q. and grimes, d. i. f. (2003). toward a combined seasonal weather and crop production forecast system: determination of the working special scale. american meterological society,175-191. diciccio, t., tibshirani, r. (1987). bootstrap confıdence intervals and bootstrap approximations, j. amer. statist. assoc., 82:161–169. ho, k. and naugher, j. (2000). outliers lie: an illustrative example of identifying outliers and applying robust models multiple linear regression viewpoints, 26(2):2-6. khaled, u. deb, bairagi, n., al-amin, s. k., m., and nabi, a. (2009). higher boro production for food security: an integrated strategy. centre for policy dialogue, (81):1-55. liu, y. r. (1988). bootstrap procedures under some non-i.i.d. models, ann. of stat., 16:1696-1708. mendelshon, r., dinar, a. and dalfelt, a. (2000). climate change impacts on african agriculture, doi: www.worldbank.org/wbi/adclimate/pdf (last access 31 january 2012). alam, m.s., islam, m. r., jabber, m. a., islam, m. s. and salam, m. a. (2008). institutional backup towards food security in bangladesh. proceedings bkas 13th national conference and seminar on climate changes: food security in bangladesh, 13. nargis, f. and lee, s. h. (2013). efficiency analysis of boro rice production in north-central region of bangladesh, the journal of animal & plant sciences, 23(2): 527-533. stine, r.(1990).modern methods of data analysis, scotland sage pub.,325-373. wfp, bangladesh(2011). bangladesh food security monitoring bulletin, http://home.wfp.org/, 2010, 1, 1-8. accessed on 15/07/2011. world bank, ‘world tables, 1989-1990 edition press’, john hopkins university press, 1990. 88ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology fitting and forecasting of trend models for the hyv boro yields of dinajpur district provash kumar karmokar*, rangan kumar and ranjan kumar kundu department of statistics university of rajshahi, rajshahi-6205, bangladesh *corresponding authors email: sprovash@yahoo.com †research student abstract bangladesh is a densely populated country and the main food of the country is rice. although the high yielding variety (hyv) bro rice is being cultivated in almost all areas of bangladesh it is enormously cultivated in dinajpur district of bangladesh. trend is very important to know the hyv boro rice yields of the country. hence the objective of this research is to fit and forecast of trend models of hyv bro rice yields of dinajpur district for the year from 1971 to 2007. the regression diagnostics revealed in this study indicate that the data is autocorrelated. hence the cochrane-orcutt method was employed to fit such data set. finally, we forecasted the yields of the three trend models for hyv boro rice yields of dinajpur up to 2021. on basis of the regression diagnostics, the quadratic trend model is an appropriate model for this data set and in this model would be useful for the decision makers for their agriculture and food policy formulation. keywords: hyv boro rice, trend models, ordinary least square, cochrane and orcutt method, forecasting. 61ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 mailto:sprovash@yahoo.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 1. introduction bangladesh is an agro-based developing country and the economic development of the country is mainly based on agriculture which contributes about 20.24% to the gross domestic product. about 43.53% of the labor force is employed in agriculture (ber, 2010). therefore, agriculture is a most important sector of bangladesh and rice is the staple food of the country. rice is the principal sources of food, calorie, and protein intake for most of the people. rice contributes positively in the economy of the country and about 84% people of bangladesh are directly or indirectly engaged in a wide range of agricultural activities (rahman 2004). in the agricultural sector rice is a major source of livelihood in terms of providing food, income and employment in bangladesh. rice occupies 10.58 million hectares of land which is about 77 percent of the cultivated area (bbs, 2008). in bangladesh, a country currently experiencing rapid population growth and serious food shortages, an effort to increase crop yields through the introduction of high yielding varieties (hyv) of rice was initiated in 1966. among the all other rice varieties, boro is the major rice crop of bangladesh which provides about 55% of the total rice production. boro is a variety of rice which is cultivated in almost every area of bangladesh. this type of rice is cultivated in nearly 35% of the 10.80 million ha of rice harvested area, and contributed 50% of the 38.7 million tons of rice produced in 2001/2002 (singh et al 2003b). normally rice is grown in bangladesh in three distinct seasons like, aus (from april to august), and amon (from august to december) and boro (from january to june). irrigated rice or boro rice is a potential area for increasing rice yield, which currently accounts for about 57% of total rice production (bbs estimate 2008). in the literature, a number of trend analyses have been carried out to measure the secular trend of some agricultural productions (e.g., sahu (2003); gupta et al (1999); karmokar and imon (2008)). these studies mainly based on the traditional ols method of estimation. however, in this study we found that the rice production data of the selected area are affected with autocorrelation problem. hence the objective of the study is to analyse and validate results of the high yielding variety (hyv) boro rice production data of dinajpur district of bangladesh in presence of autocorrelation this paper is organised as follows. the description of the data and methods are presented in section 2. the results and discussions are reported in section 3 and finally section 4 concludes the paper. 2. data and methods the rice production data for dinajpur district of bangladesh comprising of 37 years hyv boro rice yields (y) from 1971 to 2008 have been used in this study. the data have been collected from bangladesh bureau of statistics (bbs), government of bangladesh. a varieties of nonparametric tests like kruskal–wallis’s test, wald–wolfowitz’s test, whitney-pettitt’s test (pettitt, 1979), mann–kendall’s test, spearman’s test are seen in the literature to detect the trend of a data. to investigate the trend in a data set, kendall and stuart (1961) suggested mann–kendall’s test and spearman’s test as a powerful test when the most likely alternative to randomness is linear or non linear trend. in this study we measure the existence of trends using the non-parametric tests mannkendall rank tests and spearman’s rank-correlation. the mann-kendall rank test and spearman’s rankcorrelation (see kendall and stuart, 1961; mann, 1945) are briefly discussed bellow. 62ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the mann-kendall rank statistic tm is computed, by first replacing the observations xi’ s by their ranks ki s such that each term is assigned a number ranging from 1 to n which reflects its magnitude relative to the magnitudes of all other terms. for each element ki the number ni is calculated as the number of kj terms preceding it such that kj > ki . then tm is given by, )1( 4 1 1      nn n t n i i m (1) tm is distributed very nearly as a normal distribution for large n and can be used as the basis of a significance test, )1(9 104    nn n rr gm (2) where rg is the desired probability point of the normal distribution appropriate to a two-tailed test. if tm lies inside the range ± rm then the time series does not contain a trend. spearman’s rank-correlation method is simple and distribution-free which is also used to test the trends among the data sets. the test statistics of spearman rank-correlation test is defined as: )1( 6 1 2 11 2     nn d n i  (3) where, iii kykxd  when two or more observations, id , have the same value, the average rank iky is calculated. a test-statistic tt is used to test the null hypothesis 0:0 h (there is no trend) against the alternative hypothesis 0:1 h (there is a trend). the test statistic is defined as 21 2    n t t (4) for large n, the value of rs can be tested for significance by calculating the quantity ts given by the equation 21 2 s ss r n rt    (5) the computed ts indicate the boundary value for the test. method of ordinary least square (ols) is an estimation technique in statistics (harper, 1974) that was first described by german mathematician carl friedrich gauss around 1794 (bretsche, 1995). it is more convenient and widely used method among various method of estimation of unknown parameters on regression analysis technique. in the ols the estimation of parameters of a linear regression model is based on the assumption that the errors are normally independently distributed with zero means and constant variance. sometime data of a regression model involve regressors and response variables that have a natural sequential order over time. further, the errors of the regression model may have a special form of relationship which indicator of autocorrelation. in such cases the traditional ols estimators may have some faulty solution of the parameters and consequently the result may mislead to explain the whole scenario. because the ols estimators are still unbiased and consistent this is because both unbiasedness and consistency do not depend on assumption σ2 which is in this case violated. the ols estimators will be inefficient and the best linear unbiased estimator (blue) property will be not maintained. the estimated variances of the regression coefficients will be biased and inconsistent, and therefore 63ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/carl_friedrich_gauss american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology hypothesis testing may not be valid. since  2 iu is affected in an autocorrelated situation the r2 will also be affected. thus the formal autocorrelation can be tested by dw statistics which may be falls in the inconclusive region or may falls in the positive or negative autocorrelation region. the use of the cochrane and orcutt method (see cochrane and orcutt, 1949) may be a solution of such problem may gives a meaningful estimate and interpretation. consequently we can get the best fit of the model. in these viewpoints in this study we employ the cochrane and orcutt method to forecast the hyv boro yields of dinajpur district of bangladesh. to investigate the trend of yield of hyv boro rice for dinajpur district of bangladesh we consider linear, compound and quadratic trend models. the mathematical model of linear, compound and quadratic models are as follows. i. linear trend model iij tbay  , (6) where iy is the yield of hyv boro, t is the time and i is the random error. ii. quadratic model ii tctbay  2 (7) iii. compound trend model i t i aby  (8) taking logarithmic on both sides of eq.(8) we get, **** ii tbay  (9) where ii yy ln *  , aa ln*  , bb ln*  , ii  ln * . 3. results and discussions a time series consists of a trend component can be ensured using any time series (ts) plot. the ts plot of the yield of hyv boro rice of the selected district for the year from 1971 to 2007 is shown in fig.1. fig 1. ts plot of hyv boro production for the district dinajpur the descriptive statistics of yield of hyv boro rice of dinajpur district is shown in table 1. table 1. descriptive statistics for hyv boro yields of dinajpur min max mean se cv (%) skewness kurtosis 2.03 3.81 2.715 0.420 15.45 0.917 3.859 y 0.00 0.50 1.00 1.50 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 4.00 4.50 1971 1975 1979 1983 1987 1991 1995 1999 2003 2007 y year of yields y ie ld o f h y v b o ro r ic e 64ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology from the table 1, the skewness and kurtosis are 0.917 and 3.859 respectively which indicate that the data are positively skewed and the kurtosis value is greater than 3 imply that the distribution of the frequency curve is leptokurtic. since we are dealing with the yield data it is important to determine either the values of the yields increase or decrease over time or not. basically it is a matter of investigation that whether the probability distribution of such variable is changes over time or not. it is interesting to note whether or not there is a trend in the time series data and for this purpose, we used the mann-kendal and spearman rank correlation tests. specially we wish to test the hypothesis that, h0 : there is no trend in the data set h1 : there exits trend in the data set. the results of these tests appear in table 2. table 2. mann-kendal and spearman test of trend test range (years) test statistic value at 95% level ± rm trend exist mann-kendal tm 37 −0.935 0.338 yes spearman rank ts 37 −2.146 0.834 yes the 95% level of ± rm values will indicate that either there exist a trend or not. if the computed test statistics falls outside the band (– rm, + rm) would indicate that the trend exist in the data set. from table 2 the value of mann-kendal statistic, tm is −0.935 and its rm value at 95% is 0.338. therefore the test statistic value falls outside of 95% interval of rm indicating that the h0 is rejected. therefore, there exists a trend in the data set of hyv boro rice yields of dinajpur. the spearman rank statistic, ts and rm values are −2.146 and 0.834 respectively. since the ts value also falls outside of the 95% level value indicating the existence of trend by spearman rank test. the ols results of the coefficients of the three fitted models together with their corresponding p values are presented in table 3 to table 5. table 3. ols estimates of parameters for linear trend model variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t 0.019 0.004 4.458 0.000 constant 2.292 0.867 26.440 0.000 table 4. ols estimates of parameters for compound trend model variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t 0.007 0.002 4.457 0.000 constant 0.831 0.033 25.140 0.000 table 5. ols estimates of parameters for quadratic trend model variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t −0.020 0.017 −1.221 0.231 t 2 0.001 0.000 2.460 0.020 65ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology constant 2.528 0.126 20.150 0.000 the regression diagnostics r2, adjusted r2, durbin-watson statistic and jarque-bera (jb) statistic ( jarque and bera in 1981) with p values are reported in the table 6 for the selected data set. table 6. r2, adjusted r2, jb and dw statistic for the trend models by ols model r 2 adjusted r 2 jb dw statistic p value linear 0.383 0.364 3.882 0.144 1.373 quadratic 0.484 0.451 1.049 0.592 1.624 compound 0.383 0.364 2.074 0.355 1.403 we observe from the results presented in table 6 that the quadratic trend model possesses the highest 2r and adjusted 2r . the jarque-bera clearly shows that the three trend models obey the normality assumption of errors. the presence of autocorrelation in a data set is measured by the dw statistics of the residuals is compared to respective critical values (see, the tables in draper and smith (1981)). if the dw value is less than a lower limit then the null hypothesis, h0 of no serial correlation in the residuals can be rejected, but if dw exceeds an upper limit, the null hypothesis, h0 can’t be rejected. but if the dw statistic is found to be in between these boundary levels it will be indeterminate. if the dw statistic is found to be near to 2 mean that the data are not affected by autocorrelation problem. with regards to the measurement of the ols parameters of selected models the dw test revealed that in the three trend model, the h0 of non-existence of serial correlation in the respective residuals were accepted. so the data set has autocorrelation problems and autocorrelation may complicate the application of statistical tests by reducing the number of independent observations. it can also affect the predictions because future values depend on current and past values. durbin-watson (durbin and watson, 1950) test to detect the presence of autocorrelation which affects the efficiency of the estimators can be used in autocorrelated data set. to overcome the autocorrelation we employed the cochrane and orcutt method for three trend models according to our objectives of the study. the results of cochrane and orcutt method for linear, quadratic and compound trend models are displayed in table 7table 9. finally the regression diagnostics and forecasted yield of hyv boro rice for dinajpur is presented in table 10 and table 11 respectively. table 7. cochrane and orcutt estimates by linear trend model variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t 0.020 0.006 3.526 0.001 constant 2.286 0.114 20.000 0.000 table 8. cochrane and orcutt estimates by compound trend model 66ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t 0.008 0.021 3.531 0.001 constant 0.830 0.043 19.270 0.000 table 9. cochrane and orcutt estimates by quadratic trend model variable co-efficient standard error t ratio p-value t -0.021 0.019 -1.080 0.289 t 2 0.001 0.001 2.171 0.038 constant 2.528 0.145 17.390 0.000 in table 7, the estimated constant is 2.286 with standard error 0.114. the estimated coefficient for t is 0.020 with standard error 0.006. the t-ratio of time t and constant (estimates are 3.526 and 20.000 respectively) are significant for the linear trend model. from table 8, the estimated constant is 0.830 with standard error 0.043. the estimated coefficient for time is 0.008 with standard error 0.021. the tratio of time t and constant (estimates are 3.531 and 19.270 respectively) are significant for the compound trend model. in the table 9, the estimated constant is 2.528 with standard error 0.145. the estimated coefficient for t and t2 are –0.021 and 0.001 respectively with standard errors 0.019 and 0.001. the tratio of t, t2 and constant are 17.390, 2.171 and -1.080. these coefficients are significant. table 10. regression diagnostics by cochrane-orcutt method model r 2 adjusted r 2 jb dw statistic p value linear 0.431 0.413 2.073 0.355 1.867 quadratic 0.499 0.467 1.776 0.411 1.935 compound 0.429 0.411 1.401 0.496 1.877 table 11 method wise forecasted hyv boro rice production of dinajpur year of production actual production (yhdin) forecasted by linear trend model forecasted by compound trend model forecasted by quadratic trend model 2004 3.39 2.965 2.963 3.156 2005 3.52 2.985 2.985 3.215 2006 3.75 3.005 3.008 3.276 2007 3.81 3.025 3.031 3.339 2008 3.044 3.054 3.405 2009 3.064 3.077 3.473 2010 3.084 3.100 3.543 67ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 2011 3.104 3.123 3.616 2012 3.124 3.147 3.691 2013 3.144 3.171 3.768 2014 3.164 3.195 3.848 2015 3.184 3.219 3.930 2016 3.204 3.243 4.014 2017 3.224 3.268 4.100 2018 3.244 3.293 4.189 2019 3.264 3.318 4.280 2020 3.284 3.343 4.373 2021 3.304 3.368 4.469 mse 0.056 0.053 0.051 ame 0.184 0.183 0.184 it is observed from table 10 that the 2r and adjusted 2r values for linear trend model are 0.431 and 0.413 respectively. the 2r and adjusted 2r values for quadratic trend model are 0.499 and 0.467. for compound trend model the 2r and adjusted 2r values are 0.429 and 0.411. therefore the quadratic trend model possesses the highest 2r and adjusted 2r values. the jarque-bera clearly shows that the three trend models obey the normality assumption of errors. the dw statistics of the three models are close to 2 indicating that the data set is not affected by autocorrelation problem. 4. conclusion in this research, the objective was to fit and forecast of hyv bro rice yields for dinajpur. it is evident from the statistical tests that the data is autocorrelated. hence the cochrane-orcutt method has been employed to fit such data set. finally, we forecasted the yields of the three trend models for hyv boro rice yields of dinajpur up to 2021. on basis of the regression diagnostics, the quadratic trend model is an appropriate model for this data set and in this model would be useful for the decision makers for their agriculture and food policy formulation. references bangladesh bureau of statistics, bbs (1971-2008). yearbook of agricultural statistics of bangladesh, ministry of planning, government of the people’s republic of bangladesh, dhaka. ber. 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(2003). production model: in search of alternative food, presented in prof. k m hossain international seminar-cum-workshop, department of statistics, university of rajshahi, bangladesh, october 2003. singh, r.k., r. thakur and s.d. chatarjee (2003b). harnessing boro rice potential for increasing rice production in deepwater areas of eastern india, an overview. in: boro rice (rk singh, m hossain and r thakur, eds). irri-india office. 51-72. 69ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 microsoft word zoning for rambutan using geo-informatics in chanthaburi province thailand yupa.doc american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 39 zoning for rambutan using geo-informatics in chanthaburi province, thailand yupa limsawad1, chalongchai babpraserth1*, thunya taychasinpitak1 and sununtha kingpaiboon2 abstract agro-economic zoning of agricultural commodity is undertaken in accordance with the objectives of the agricultural economic act b.e. 2522. the objectives are to adjust rambutan production suitable for area potential as well as to increase efficiency of production system, processing and marketing to be in high stability, and to increase competitiveness in the world market. the methodology is to apply new technology, so called geo-informatics, as a tool for agro-economic zoning. this technology including geographic information system-gis, remote sensing-rs, and global positioning systemgps has been proven and effective tool for spatial rambutan production zoning and planning. the analysis for potential level of rambutan production zoning is undertaken by integrating the map of area suitability for rambutan production obtained from land allocation suitable for production target with important economic factors effecting to production system. the factors are : commodity demand and supply, production target, production source, production cost, farm gate price, production capability, and plant location (for processing factory) at district level. percentage of weighting and other conditions are different for each factor. the result obtained in this step is map illustrating potential level for rambutan production zoning. the potential is devided into 2 levels including production potential area level 1 and production potential area level 2. keywords: zoning, spatial production planning, geo-informatics, rambutan, chanthaburi province 1 department of horticultural, faculty of agriculture, kasetsart university, bangkok 10900, thailand. agrccb@ku.ac.th 2department of agricultural engineering, faculty of engineering, khonkaen university, khonkaen, 40002, thailand. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 40 introduction the rambutan ( nephelium lappaceum) is a medium-sized tropical tree in the family sapindaceae. the fruit produced by the tree is also known as "rambutan." it is native to vietnam, indonesia, the philippines, sri lanka, malaysia, and elsewhere in southeast asia, although its precise natural distribution is unknown. it is closely related to several other edible tropical fruits including the lychee, longan, and mamoncillo. it is believed to be native to the malay archipelago, from where it spread westwards to thailand, burma, sri lanka and india; eastwards to vietnam, the philippines and indonesia. the name rambutan is derived from the malay word rambutan, meaning "hairy". in vietnam, it is called chôm chôm (meaning "messy hair") due to the spines covering the fruit's skin. thailand is the leading producer of rambutan in the asian region with about 330,720 rai and 307,342 metric ton (2011). production is concentrated in the provinces of chanthaburi, trad, rayong, in the east and nakhonsithammarat, suratthani, narathiwat, and chumphon, in the south and chiangrai, nan, in the north. peak harvest season is between may and july. in recent years, many rambutan plantings in the chanthaburi area have been replaced by para rubber and oil palm trees due to overproduction, high postharvest costs and low return. market and price situation in 2011 is highly trend due to continuous demand of consumption both in local and foreign market. average price is between 14 baht to 16 baht /kg. main export market is vietnam, cambodia, hongkong, singapore, and malaysia. in 2012 expected that local consumption and export fresh rambutan fruit are more trend because of continuous increasing in production and foreign market consumption. one of the mandates of the office of agricultural economics-oae, defined in the agricultural economic act b.e. 2522, is to study, analyse factors related to agricultural production. the factors include : suitability of production source based on soil type, weather condition ; water supply ; farm type ; farmer’s main income ; and domestic and external market demand. those factors are used for agro-economic zoning of agricultural commodity, and then submit to the committee on agriculture and cooperatives policy and development plan. so far, the agro-economic zoning for agricultural commodity was undertaken for 13 commodities including 12 crops and 1 livestock. they are sugarcane, oil palm, major rice, second rice, corn, cassava, pineapple, soybean, rubber, durian, longan, and coffee. however, various circumstances have been changed. the committee therefore set up the sub-committee on zoning and implementation measure consideration to review and renew the agro-economic zoning by using new technology so called geoinformatics. the technology including geographic information system-gis, remote sensing-rs, and global positioning system-gps. gis is a new technical methodology using computer for spatial data american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 41 collection, archival, and management. this method provides accurate and reliable spatial information such as position of target places. the results can therefore be effectively applied for spatial planning. in addition, the establishment of the existing zones was mainly directed by the government. even though many measures were launched to encourage farmers to produce in accordance with the production guidance in each zone such as farmer registration and provision of incentives through various projects, fewer farmers were interested to register and participate in this program. furthermore, the supporting activities and measures provided by government and others parties were not well coordinated. this is mainly due to the lack of concrete plan that can harmonize the activities of concerned parties and provide sufficient incentives to farmers. thus, zoning for rambutan using geo-informatics in chanthaburi province, thailand is the case study that can be done and used in appropriate database management both in production and market for local and export include by product in related industry. established spatial production planning which link to development strategic plan for thai fruits b.e. 2010-2014. these, thailand will be the leader of rambutan, tropical agriculture fruit crops, production and export fresh fruit and by product in the world market. integration with spatial data and socio-economic for utmost efficiency utilization in agricultural development planning. for the studies of land suitability for crops, ceballo-silva and lopez-blanco 2003 applied multicriteria evaluation (mce) approach, gis and rs to delineate suitable areas for the production of maize and potato crops in toluca, central mexico. data included in the analysis were climate, relief and soil databases, which were used to generate gis raster coverage. relevant criteria for crops and suitability levels were defined according to fao standards, and criteria maps were introduced in the mce algorithm to obtain the suitability map for each crop. landsat tm image in 1996 were processed using supervised classification to obtain land use/land cover (lu/lc) map, which showed 13 land use/land cover types. after that, lu/lc and suitability maps were compared to identify a suitable area for maize and potato crops. musekawat 2004 applied remote sensing and gis as tools for spatial data analysis toward the zoning and management of land use in tambon bang khunsai, phetchaburi province, thailand. aerial photographs taken in 1994 and 2002 were interpolated to detect changing in land use and land cover pattern of the study area. srirattanatum 1988 used biophysical factors of topography, soil, vegetation, wildlife, water resources, accessibility and aesthetics to identify management zones at tarutao national park, thailand by using manual overlay techniques. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 42 trisurat 1990 applied linear combination method of multiple criteria of eight bio-physical factors to create management zones in phu rua national park in northeastern part of thailand. each factor was ranked and weighted based on its suitability for each zone. the objective of this research was to define and adjust agricultural production suitable for area potential. those will lead to agro-economic zoning in chanthaburi province, thailand. to increase efficiencies of production system, processing, and marketing of agricultural commodity. materials and methods the methodology is to apply new technology, so called geo-informatics, as a tool for agro-economic zoning. this technology including geographic information system-gis, remote sensing-rs, and global positioning system-gps has been proven and effective tool for zoning on rambutan and planning. materials and equipments are composed of workstation, external hard disc, satellite data, color printer, and topological map 1:50,000. the methodology for zoning on rambutan production is to study on present crop production system and land allocation suitable for production target. the step show on figure1. figure 1. show the step on using gis to analyse potential production area. data conversion data conversion from the existing map into digital format by compiling such maps from relevant agencies. in case that some thematic maps are not available or obsolete, the up-to-date maps will be produced by office of agricultural economics (oae). the converted relevant maps include: 1.) provincial soil properties map, at a scale of 1:50,000 obtained from the land development department (ldd), of which comprises soil properties for the whole country. 2.) irrigation map obtained from the royal irrigation department (rid) comprises both irrigation and non-irrigation zones. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 43 3.). average rainfall map obtained from the department of meteorology of which average rainfall is ranging into 10 levels including: (1) rainfall of 1,000-1,100 mm. (2) rainfall of 1,100-1,200 mm. (3) rainfall of 1,200-1,400 mm. (4) rainfall of 1,400-1,600 mm. (5) rainfall of 1,600-2,000 mm. (6) rainfall of 2,000-2,400 mm. (7) rainfall of 2,400-2,800 mm. (8) rainfall of 2,800-3,200 mm. (9) rainfall of 3,200-4,400 mm. (10)rainfall of 4,400-5,000 mm. 4.) forest legal boundary map, at a scale of 1:50,000 obtained from the royal forestry department, of which includes both inland forest and mangrove boundaries. inland forest is categorized into 2 zones: economic forest boundary conserved forest boundary mangrove land use is categorized into the following zones: 1. conservation zone represents the mangrove area prohibited for any change to conserve the environment and ecosystem. the zone includes 10 categories namely: 1.1 areas for breeding of economic plant and aqua-animal. 1.2 areas for breeding of plant and aqua-animal. 1.3 areas prone to destruction and soil erosion including beach, sand dune, mud flat, accreted mud flat, accreted sand, island, cave and coral reef. 1.4 areas of history and archeology significance. 1.5 areas of local symbol. 1.6 national park, forestry park, tourism spot, wildlife sanctuary, and hunting prohibited zone. 1.7 forest areas reserved for fire protection. 1.8 forest areas suitable for research. 1.9 forest areas suitable for environment and ecosystem conservation. 1.10 areas of the distance not less than 20 meters from river banks and not less than 75 meters from coast lines 2. economic zone includes 2 categories namely: 2.1 economic zone a includes the mangrove areas allowed for forestry activity especially to provide regular production. they are namely: 2.1.1 concessioned forest area and forest under project area. 2.1.2 unconcessioned forest area suitable for social forestry. 2.1.3 forest plantation area for forest products of both government and private sectors. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 44 2.2 economic zone b includes mangrove areas allowed for other land utilize and development. however, environmental impacts are to be taken into consideration. the area includes: 2.2.1 agricultural area for the following purposes: 2.2.1.1 crop cultivation 2.2.1.2 livestock 2.2.1.3 fisheries 2.2.1.4 salt pan 2.2.2 industrial area includes 2.2.2.1 mining 2.2.2.2. industrial factory 2.2.3 urban area 2.2.4 commercial area 2.2.5. sea port 2.2.6 others 5.) road network map, at scales of 1:1,000,000 and 1:250,000 obtained from the department of highway and the royal thai survey department, includes: 5.1 road comprises: -highway with number -provincial road with number -road under the office of accelerated rural development -dirt road, and etc. 5.2 railway 5.3 road along irrigation canal 6.) administrative boundary map, at a scale of 1:50,000 obtained from the national statistical office, and the royal thai survey department includes: 6.1 province boundary 6.2 district boundary 6.3 sub-district boundary 6.4 locations of province, district and sub-district offices 7.) present land use map, at a scale of 1:50,000 obtained from 2005 satellite image interpretation by oae, includes the following categories: land use type code 1. paddy field ri 2. paddy under trees (agro forest) ri /tr 3. field crops 3.1 single crops cassava up ca american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 45 sugarcane corn pineapple 3.2 mixed crops su co pi up 4. horticultural crops 4.1 special orchard rubber oil palm coconut coffee orchard 4.2 mixed orchard mixed orchard resident orchard ru pa ce cf or or or/ ur 5. tree crops (standing trees) 5.1 trees along the road or riverene trees 5.2 standing trees in the village tr tr 6. forest 6.1 inland forest 6.2 mangrove 6.3 swamp forest / bog 6.4 forest plantation (pine, eucalyptus, teak) 6.5 idle land fo ma fs fp id 7. pasture 7.1 grass land 7.2 swamp grass gs sw 8. city, village ur 9. other land uses 9.1 shrimp farm 9.2 salt pan 9.3 fish pond 9.4 others sh sa fi ot 10. water body wa 11. barren land ba data analysis data analysis was carried out by using gis and oracle software under window nt operating system the steps are follows: 1) project construction and database establishment to integrate spatial information, obtained from digital map, and attribute information so called topology. 2) data analysis was undertaken by overlaying of multi-layer spatial information. the data includes: 2.1 soil series were categorized, in accordance with suitability condition, into 3 levels namely: 1.represents high suitability for rambutan cultivation 2.represents moderate suitability for rambutan cultivation 3.represents unsuitability for rambutan cultivation 2.2 rainfall map was categorized into 4 levels namely: 1. the rainfall of high suitability for rambutan. 2. the rainfall of moderate suitability for rambutan. 3. the rainfall of marginal suitability for rambutan. 4. the rainfall of unsuitability for rambutan. 2.3.overlaid the rainfall map onto the irrigation zone and soil series maps to obtain the map of suitability area for rambutan including: the map of suitability area for rambutan was then overlaid onto the present land use map and forest legal boundary map to remove the undesirable areas including conserved forest, water body, and others. 2.4.calculate the suitability area for rambutan in chanthaburi province and district , thailand american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 46 suitability analysis the results comprise 2 types of information: map and level of rambutan suitability area which was ranged into 7 levels. they are: 1. high suitability area 2. moderate suitability area 3. unsuitability area 4. existing forest area 5. deteriorated forest area 6. water body 7. residential, city, and other built up areas. agro-economic zoning analysis section 1.01 to analyze rambutan agro-economic zoning using main data as follow: spatial data gis was applied for the analysis of rambutan suitability area in thailand by overlaying of soil map, rainfall map, and irrigation map. by such a procedure, the undesirable areas such as conserved forest, urban area, water body and etc. were removed. rambutan suitability areas were then categorized, based on the boundary of chanthaburi province, into 3 levels: high, moderate and unsuitable. administrative boundary of chanthaburi province, district and sub-district, and communication network were also overlaid onto the rambutan suitability area map in both paper print at a scale of 1:50,000 and digital formats. socio-economic data -study and analyze demand and supply of rambutan both of domestic and foreign market include factory production needed. -analyzing and forecasting rambutan production and price level, cost, transportation expenditures and income return from farmer to factory. -rambutan production data in 1 years (2011) by district or amphoe. -rambutan canned factory and quantity were located with gps show about latitude-longitude to the earth. -production and trade policy data of rambutan and canned factory between thailand and relevant organization. figure 2. figure 2. show the step on using gis to analyse spatial data for rambutan zoning. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 47 results and discussion analysis of area suitability the spatial data map are analysed on area plysical suitability for crop planting based on the boundary of chanthaburi province, thailand. area calculation and production of area physical suitability map is undertaken by overlaying administrative boundary on to the suitability map. area for each suitability level can then be obtained and analysed to define agro-economic zone for rambutan in this step. the items to be studied are such as production source, production quantity, market demand both domestic and external markets, market future trend, and production target suitable for rambutan such as production target defined in agricultural commodity strategic plan. the analysis for potential level of rambutan production zoning is undertaken by integrating the map of area suitability for rambutan production obtained from land allocation suitable for production target with important economic factors effecting to production system. the factors are : commodity demand and supply, production target, production source, production cost, farm gate price, production capability, and plant location (for processing factory) at district level. percentage of weighting and other conditions are different for each factor. the results of analysis for rambutan zoning in chanthaburi province, thailand show that correlation analysis of physical factor and economic factor with 3 variables such as: suitable area, existing planted area and product yield. the result obtained in this step is map illustrating potential level for rambutan production zoning. the potential is devided into 2 levels including production potential area level 1 and production potential area level 2. production potential area level 1 or zone1 refers to suitable area more than 10,000 rai , existing area more than 5,000 rai , yield more than 1,000 kilogram per rai. production potential area level 2 or zone 2 refers to suitable area more than 1,000-9,999 rai , existing area between 1,000-4,999 rai , yield between 500-999 kilogram per rai. weight analyse for zoning among suitable area : existing area : yield related to ratio 30 : 40 : 30 respectively as show on table 1. table 1. correlation analysis of physical factor and economic factor potential production suitable area (rai) existing planted area (rai) product yield (kg. / rai) level 1 suitable>10,000 >5,000 >1,000 level 2 suitable>1,000-9,999 1,000-4,999 500-999 weight (%) 30% 40% 30% from the results map of land suitability for rambutan in chanthaburi province which define and group into 5 levels, namely, highly suitable, moderately suitable, unsuitable, forest, and water as show on american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 48 figure 3. these will lead to map of zoning for rambutan in chanthaburi province when analyse with socio-economic data via weight and score for each variable by overlaying technique. the results map of zoning for rambutan in chanthaburi province show production potential area level 1 or zone1 by principal and condition as laid out in 8 amphoe which respect to highly suitable area and exiting planted area include yield. they are mueang chanthaburi, kaeng hang maeo, laem sing, king amphoe khao khitchakut, khlung, tha mai, na yai am, makham, except 2 amphoe of pong nam ron, and soi dao that state on production potential area level 2 or zone2 as show on figure 4 and table 2. figure 3. map of land suitability for figure 4. map of zoning for rambutan rambutan in chanthaburi province in chanthaburi provinc acknowledgements the researcher would like to thank department of horticulture, faculty of agriculture, bangkhen campus, kasetsart university, and office of agricultural economics for funding and providing materials with equipment in this research. mutant mutant american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 49 table 2. zoning for rambutan in chanthaburi province province /amphoe suitable area (rai) existing yield zone analyse zoning area existing planted area (rai) highly moderately planted area highly suitable moderately suitable (rai) (kg./ra) level 1 level 2 level 0 level 1 level 2 level 0 level 1 level 2 leve l 0 mueang chanthaburi 29,591 11,281 5,790 1,042 1 29,591 11,281 5,790 kaeng hang maeo 0 77,981 24,659 627 1 0 77,981 24,659 laem sing 58 12,439 30,709 1,526 1 58 12,439 30,709 pong nam ron 66,643 18,518 850 443 2 66,643 18,518 850 king amphoe khao khitchakut 77,145 30,235 16,283 1,263 1 77,145 30,235 16,283 khlung 38,682 64,439 860 1,473 1 38,682 64,439 860 tha mai 118,813 16,283 624 741 1 118,813 16,283 624 na yai am 11,414 55,545 2,886 1,769 1 11,414 55,545 2,886 makham 39,253 65,352 4,938 1,257 1 39,253 65,352 4,938 soi dao 0 12,233 24,309 1,589 2 0 12,233 24,309 chanthaburi total 381,599 364,306 111,908 262 314,957 66,643 0 333,555 30,751 0 86,749 25,159 0 remark rambutan 30 : 40 : 30 weight analyse for zoning among suitable area:existing area :yield related to ratio 30 : 40 : 30 by order. suitable area calculated from spatial map by office of agricultural economics. existing area from department of agricultural extension by amphoe. yield from department of agricultural extension by amphoe. zone 1 refers to suitable area more than 10,000 rai , existing area more than 5,000 rai , yield more than 1,000 kilogram per rai. zone 2 refers to suitable area more than 1,000-9,999 rai , existing area between 1,000-4,999 rai , yield between 500-999 kilogram per rai. zone 0 no potential for zoning because lower than lever zone 2. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 50 reference: aronoff, s. 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(1990). management plan for phu rua national park, thailand including remote sensing and gis techniques. master’s degree thesis. asian institute of technology. bangkok, thailand. turner, b.l., d., skole, s., sanderson, g., fisher, l.fresco, and r.leemans, (1995). land-use and landcover change science/research plan. available: http://www.ihdp.unibonn.de/html/publications/reports/report07/luccsp.htm venkatachalam, p., c.v.s.s.b.r., murthy, s.chowdhury, and l.n. sharma, (1991).groundwater potential zone mapping using gis approach. asianpacific rs journal, 4,(1), 75-78. xu, w. (1997). agricultural land use change in relation to agro-ecosystem health. ph.d. dissertation, university of guelph, canada. microsoft word dr ujang.doc 1 power availability and requirements for small-scale rice farm operations: a case in riau province, indonesia ujang paman1*, shigeki inaba2 and susumu uchida3 1 the united graduate school of agricultural science, kagoshima university, japan and permanent address: department of agricultural economics, faculty of agriculture, riau islamic university, jalan kaharuddin nasution no. 113 perhentian marpoyan pekanbaru 28284 riau, indonesia. 2associate professor, department of environment sciences, saga university, saga city, japan 3professor emeritus of saga university, saga city, japan. *corresponding author: e-mail: u_paman@yahoo.com abstract the objective of this study was to identify the power availability and requirement for small-scale rice farming operations in riau province. primary and secondary data were gathered from different sources. a total of 120 farmers were interview to collect data primer from two selected rice centers in two regencies of the province during the 2008 rainy cropping season. as a result, the availability of farm power still is very low, although showing an increasing trend during a period of 1997-06 primarily for mechanical power unit. during the same period, the stage of rice mechanization process has also been relatively low and still below the take-off stage in critical point of the mechanization process. under these conditions, it was analyzed that the increased number of farm power has no effect on total cultivated area and yield of rice over the years. the main sources of farm power practiced by rice farmers are human labor and mechanical power, while draught animal was not used in riau rice farming operations anymore. mechanical power is just used to perform land preparation, threshing and milling operations, while other farm operations are still done completely by manual. the total power required per hectare of rice farm operations was 418 kw (561 hp) on average. although mechanized farm operations need more power, the total operation hours would decrease significantly. the results suggest that efforts should be taken to continuously encourage farmers to adopt mechanical power technologies in order to carry out farm operations timely and short period, and to make rice production process more productive and efficient. key words: power availability and requirement, small-scale rice operation, human power, animal power, mechanical power 2 introduction mechanization has well recognized as an important input to modernize agricultural production system. it involves the provision and use of all forms of principal power sources from human, draught animal and to mechanical power (sahay, 2004; sims and kienzle, 2006; bishop, 2007). the appropriate choice and use of farm machinery and equipment have a direct effect on the area under cultivation, the timeliness of operation and the effective use of others input (bishop, 1997). therefore, many developing countries have made the extra effort to mechanize farming by increasing use of mechanical power technologies. however, human being and draught animal power still play a vital role in many farming systems especially on smaller and poorer farms in asia (lawrence and pearson, 2002). while in indonesia and other developing countries of south and southeast asia, about 60% to 70% of the rice area is prepared manually by human labor and harvested by knife or sickle. from asian countries was also reported that 30% of land is cultivated by hand, 30% by draught animals, and 40% by tractors (fao, 2008). the general purpose of farm mechanization is to replace human muscle and animal power with mechanical power (saegusa, 1975). based on the past experience, mechanization transition from hand tools through animal-drawn implements until the application of mechanical power was not a simple process. the transition process becomes difficult and needs time because it has to involve a number of technical, economic and social problems (sakai et al., 1986). gego (1986) studied that it would take some 30 to 50 years to undergo these development processes. in addition, depeng et al. (1983) stated that agricultural condition, farm management, management scale, economic condition, technical level of manufacture, farmer’s experience, etc. affect the use and development of mechanical power. the degree of mechanization used in agriculture is greatly different among the various countries of the world. in indonesia, the use of mechanical power in agriculture especially in domain of mechanization for rice cultivation has been showing an increasing trend, although the pace is slow. in the early 1980s, for instance, the rice farming has been mainly dependent on animal and human power with limited use of power tillers and mechanical threshers (singh, 1984). about ten years later, the power input has still come from human and animal power with an increased use of mechanical power (salokhe and hendriadi, 1995). currently, the level of mechanization in the country varies from low to high primarily in rice cultivation, ranging from 10% to 90% depends on the intensity of the farming system and common figure indicates its average level of 30% (handaka, 2005). in riau province, mechanizing rice farming, which is predominantly small-scale farmers and subsistent level in production (paman, et al, 2010), remains to be a priority concern of provincial 3 government in order to provide staple food for majority of population of the province. although rice mechanization has seen a rather slow progress, currently, mechanical power is gradually taking over mainly the power-intensive farm operations such as land preparation, threshing, lift irrigation, drying, and milling. it is important that the adequate availability of power sources in rice farming is very crucial for successful and timely operations. the purpose of this study is to identify the power source and requirement for small-scale rice farming operations in riau province. materials and methods two rice production centers from two regencies in riau province, namely; bunga raya in siak regency and bangkinang seberang in kampar regency were selected as the survey areas. both locations were purposively selected to represent an average condition of the most intensive farming system of the rice production and the highest level of mechanization adopted in the province. a sample of 60 farmers from each survey location or 120 farmers for total were chosen randomly and interviewed personally by using the structured questionnaires. the farmers in the survey areas own land and use farm machines for performing in some rice operation works. the survey was carried out during 2008 rainy cropping season which is the main season for rice growing in the province. during the season (september – february), the growing of rice on 90 to 100% area is possible (khan, 1996). this study used primary and secondary data. primary data consisted of cropping patterns, time and power requirement for each rice operation of rice cultivation. furthermore, secondary data were obtained from food crops service and statistical bureau of riau province. the data included population of farm machines on farm (unit), rice harvested area (ha), rice yield (ton/ha), and annual rice production (ton). data were tabulated and afterward analyzed using descriptive analyses. results and discussion availability of farm machines and power according to figure 1, the significant development of major farm machines in riau province such tractors, water pumps, power thresher, and rice milling unit has been started in 2001 when farmers begin to purchase the machines individually and use them on their rice farms. the increased availability of farm machines in the province has brought about the changing trends in the use of mechanization technology from manual tools to mechanical power. the number of pedal thresher, for example, decreased constantly during a period of 1997-06 replaced by power thresher which increased during the same period. 4 the increasing use of mechanical power becomes increasingly important amid increasing average age of farmers and decreasing human labor availability due to less attracted of young generation in agricultural activities. moreover, jacobs and harrell (1983) claimed that the number of people employed in agriculture production has declined as improved mechanization technology. these conditions would cause the human labor becomes more and more scarce and costly in rice production. according to herdt (1983), four critical point in the mechanization process are the initial stage; the early stage with about 2.5 hand tractors/1000 ha; the take-off stage with about 20 hand tractors/1000 ha; and the full mechanization with about 1000 hand tractors/1000 ha. starting in 2000, mechanization of rice farming in riau province was entering the early stage with nearly 2.0 hand tractors/1000 ha on average (figure 2a and 2b). thereafter, the mechanization stage increased significantly with peak number of about 7.6 hand tractors/1000 ha in 2003, but the average stage considered relatively low to about 4.7 hand tractor /1000 ha of cultivated area and below the take-off stage in critical point of the mechanization process. the result indicates that farm mechanization development in the province has seen a rather slow progress over the years. 0 300 600 900 1200 1500 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 n o. o f m ac hi ne s in th ou sa nd years large tractors small tractors water pumps reapers power threshers dryers rice milling unit 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 n o. o f ha nd to ot s in th ou sa nd years pedal threshers hand sprayers smooth sickles serrated sickles (a) (b) fig 1. number of major farm machines (a) and hand tools (b) on farm, 1996-06. 5 95 105 115 125 135 0 2 4 6 8 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 c ul tiv at ed a re a in th ou sa nd h a n o. o f h an d tra ct or s/ 10 00 h a years no. of hand tractors/1000 ha cultivated area fig 2. number of hand tractors per 1000 ha versus cultivated area (a) and yields (b) of rice over times the increasing number of farm machines, in fact, was not followed by increasing cultivated area and yield per hectare over the years. figure 2a shows that the annual fluctuation of the cultivated area (ranging from 100 thousand to 124 thousand ha over the years) did not reflect the increasing number of hand tractors on farm in the province. similar conditions were also found on yields as presented in figure 2b. rice yields (ranging from 3.20 t to 3.36 t ha-1 over the years) did not increase when the number of hand tractors/1000 ha increased. it means that farm power and equipment available failed to realize their potential. this may be caused by ineffective use of the machines as a result of breakdowns, fragmented land, and poor farm infrastructure (irrigation and farm road) and service support systems. survey conducted by paman et al. (2007) reported that the tractor breakdown was a major problem found in the province. while the frequency of tractor and implement breakdowns was one of causes of low total annual usage of tractors (kolawale, 1972). by assuming that the power available from one person is 0.1 hp, draught animal about 0.5 hp and a commonly used engine of 8.5 hp for hand tractor, the availability of farm power in riau province is presented in table 1. the total power available per hectare of rice cultivated area increased from 0.37 hp in 1997 to 0.47 hp in 2006 with an average growth of 4.97% per annum. although showing an increasing trend over the years, the total power available per annum was only 0.45 hp.ha-1 on average during the period. this power availability is very low and difficult to increase productivity of rice. because the total power availability remains under the minimum power requirement for an efficient agriculture. a world wide study has concluded that for optimum yields, there is a need for a power input of at least 0.8 hp.ha-1 (jain, 1979). 3.0 3.2 3.4 3.6 3.8 0.00 2.00 4.00 6.00 8.00 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 y ie ld s (t /h a ) n o . o f h a n d tr a ct o rs /1 0 0 0 h a years no. of hand tractors/1000 ha yields 6 the highest growth was occurred on machine power to reach 10.49% per annum and followed by human power 8.39% per annum, whereas draught animal power decreased by 3.15% per annum during the same period. although draught animal has potential power for performing various farm operations, its use decreased continuously during last two decades in the riau province primarily after farm machine is extensively introduced to farmers. in present farming practices, draught animal was very rare to be used by farmers with some reasons. the low efficiency and very slow in doing work are main reasons for not using draught animal by farmers. figure 3 indicates that rice farming is heavily dependent on human and machine power which constituted 39% and 44% of total power respectively, while the animal power contributed only 17% on average during the period of 1997–06. the contribution of different power sources to the total power fluctuated every year. the human power was fluctuated at a range from 31% in 2003-04 to 55% in 2000. draught animal contribution declined since 1998 and reached the lowest share to about 10% per annum in 2001, and afterward relatively unchanged up to 2006. although being also fluctuated over the years, mechanical power increased more rapidly compared to human power during the same period. the increased number of major farm machines since 2001 as shown previous figure caused the increasing mechanical power contribution. table 1. the farm power sources for rice cultivation in riau province (hp ha-1), 1997-06. power sources 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 ave. growth (%) human * 0.13 0.18 0.14 0.24 0.28 0.17 0.18 0.14 0.16 0.18 8.39 animal 0.10 0.10 0.08 0.06 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 0.07 -3.15 machine 0.14 0.16 0.11 0.13 0.28 0.24 0.26 0.24 0.23 0.22 10.49 total 0.37 0.44 0.33 0.44 0.62 0.47 0.50 0.45 0.46 0.47 4.97 note: * estimated form 10% of cow and buffalo available in the province. source: food crops service of riau province, 1998, 2001, 2004, 2007. 7 it was observed that the main cause of the low availability of power for rice cultivation in the province is that most farmers still depend on human muscle who can only generate a maximum power from about 0.075 kw-h (about 0.1 hp-h) (singh and siswasumarto, 1988; sahay, 2004) to 0.15 kw-h (0.2 hp-h) (asae, 2006) for an adult human on an average. under low available power, mainly from human power, yield per hectare will remain at subsistence level (igbeka, 1984) or land productivity is generally low because of the lack of physical available and the limited range of hand tools (sims and kienzle, 2006). such power shortage would become a constraint not only to increase rice yields, but also to modernize rice farming system in the province. power requirements in rice farming operations farming operations are seasonal with fluctuating power demand on each stage of the operations. in farming practices, mechanical power application is still limited in riau province. farm operations which require relatively little power are still performed completely by human power such as seeding, transplanting, weeding, harvesting, and drying. on the other hand, farm operations which require high doses of power input are mostly performed by mechanical power such as land preparation, threshing, and milling. in addition, paddy field which has very small size (< 0.2 ha) is worked 36% 42% 43% 55% 45 35 31% 31% 36% 38% 27% 22% 23% 14% 11% 15% 15% 15% 14% 15% 38% 36% 34% 30% 45% 51% 55% 55% 50% 47% 0.00 0.10 0.20 0.30 0.40 0.50 0.60 0.70 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 h or se po w er years human power animal power machine power fig 3. contribution of different power sources on total power available for rice farming in riau province, 1997-06. 8 completely by human power with traditional tools, such as hoe for tilling, sickle for harvesting, etc. of the 120 farmers interviewed in the survey areas, nobody used animal as the draught power. in order to apply mechanical power, most small farmers resort to custom service organized by individual or group/cooperative farmers for their field operations. operations, such as land preparation, drying, and milling, are available for such services. through the custom services, most of the small farmers are able to handle their farm operations on time without the need to purchase or own any machine and related equipment. the services can be paid in the form of cash or installment without any interest borne on the payment delay. the service charge is usually negotiated and decided together prior to farm work performed (paman et al, 2010). it was found that about 85% of farmers hired hand tractor for land preparation, 64% hired thresher for threshing rice, and all farmers brought rice grain to either huller or rice milling unit for milling it. table 2 presents the use of human and mechanical power per hectare for various operations of rice production in riau province. the total power requirement for rice operations per hectare in the province under current stage of mechanization was 418 kw (561 hp) on average. most of the power (89.2%) came from mechanical power and the rest are from human power. the farm operations which involved mechanical power include only land preparation, threshing, and milling, while other operations are employed entirely by human power. around 6.4% of human power came from woman and the rest 4.3% were from man power. according to table 2, land preparation required more mechanical power which constituted about 39% of total power and followed by threshing (28%) and milling (21%) operations. they table 2. the use of human and mechanical power per hectare for various operations for rice production in riau province type of operations power requirement (kw) human machine total man woman land preparation 0 0 164.8 164.8 seedling 0 1.8 0 1.8 planting 2.7 8.2 0 10.9 weeding 2.7 5.8 0 8.5 fertilizing 1.6 1.6 0 3.2 pest control 2.0 0.4 0 2.4 harvesting 4.4 5.9 0 10.3 threshing 0 0 119.3 119.3 transportation 3.1 0 0 3.1 cleaning 0 2.0 0 2.0 drying 1.7 1.3 0 3.0 milling 0 0 89.5 89.5 total 18.2 27.0 373.6 418.8 percentage 4.3 6.4 89.2 100.0 ** an adult man was assumed to be equivalent to 0.07 kw-h and an adult woman equal to 0.05 kw-h (singh and siswasumarto, 1988). 9 contributed entirely about 88% of total power, and the remaining 12% were human power. on the other hand, the mechanical power operations contributed only 6.6% of total hours and the rest 93.4% were human power. it means that the rice farm operations by mechanical power needed shorter time compared with human power, but required much more power. the result suggests that farmers should be encouraged continuously to use machine power to perform farm operations in order to decrease significantly rice operation hours. the farmers must also be familiar with mechanical power, so the productive capability of farmers increases and their rice production processes become more productive and efficient. conclusions the farm power available per hectare of rice cultivated area was only 0.45 hp on average and increased by 4.97% per annum during a period of 1997-06. the main sources of the power were human and machine powers which contributed an average of 39% and 44% of total power respectively, and the rest 17% were draught animal power which was not used in farm operation practices anymore. during the same period, the stage of rice mechanization process has also been relatively low of about 4.7 hand tractors/1000 ha of cultivated area and still below the take-off stage in critical point of the mechanization process. under current stage of rice farm mechanization, the use of farm machines had no impact on total cultivated area as well as yield of rice. in farm practices, the farm operations which involve mechanical power include only land preparation, threshing, and milling, while other farm operations are employed entirely by human power. under these conditions, total power required for rice farm operations per hectare was 418 kw (561 hp) on average. farmers should be encouraged continuously to adopt mechanical power technologies in order to carry out farm operations timely and short period, and to make rice production process more productive and efficient. references asae. (2006). engine & tractor power. fourth edition, st. joseph, michigan, usa. bishop, c. (1997). a guide to preparing an agricultural mechanization strategy. food and agricultural organization of the united nations, rome. 32 p. fao. (2008). agricultural mechanization in africa – time for action. food and agricultural organization of the united stated nations. rome. 26 p. food crops service of riau province. (1998). data series of food crops in riau province. pekanbaru, indonesia 10 food crops service of riau province. (2001). data series of food crops in riau province. pekanbaru, indonesia food crops service of riau province. (2004). data series of food crops in riau province. pekanbaru, indonesia food crops service of riau province. (2007). data series of food crops in riau province. pekanbaru, indonesia. gego, a. (1986). problems of agricultural mechanization in developing country. agricultural mechanization in asia, africa, and latin america, 17(1): 11 – 21. handaka. 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(2004). elements of agricultural engineering. fourth edition, lomous offset press, delhi, 11 india. sakai, j., kishimoto, t., & phongsupasamit, s. (1986). studies on evolutional steps for plowing and tractorization in japan; the unique mechanization promotion in small scale farming. agricultural mechanization in asia, africa and latin america, 17(4): 11 – 19. salokhe, v. m., & hendriadi, a. (1995). power tiller industry in indonesia. agricultural mechanization in asia, africa, and latin america, 26(4): 29 – 32. sims, b. g., & kienzle, j. (2006). farm power and mechanization for small farms in sub-saharan africa. agriculture and food engineering technical report. rome. 20 p. singh, g. (1984). agricultural mechanization in selected southeast asian countries. agricultural mechanization in asia, africa, and latin america, 18(3): 33 – 39, 44. singh g, & siswasumarto, h. (1988). farm mechanization in west java, indonesia. agricultural mechanization in asia, africa and latin america, 19(1): 9-13. microsoft word 76-full article with author-186-1-4-20210825-edited american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: science and engineering agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agroforestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science iot, ai, 4th ir, computer science, ict food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 92 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org adaptability of seven maize (zea mays l.) varieties in high humid rainforest zone of nigeria esang, d. m1*, akata, o.r2 and ikeh, a.o3 doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5448898 abstract field experiment was conducted at national cereals research institute (ncri) uyo-out station in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons. the aim was to evaluate the yields of seven maize varieties in humid rainforest of uyo, southeastern nigeria in view of recommending high yield varieties. the experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design, replicated three times. the treatments were seven maize varieties viz: uwep (local). farz 32, oba super 2, oba 98 and suwan-i-sr, quality protein maize (qpm) and extra-early. growth and yield data were subjected to analysis of variance. significant mean were compared using least significant difference at p<0.05. the result showed significant difference(p<0.05) plant height. far 32 was the tallest at 9wap (159.37 and 163.33 cm in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively) the shortest variety, 121.12 and 122.61 cm, respectively at 9wap was recorded in qpm. the weight of grains varied significantly different. farz 32 had the heaviest 100 grain weight, 42.60 g and 41.30 g in 2015 and 2016, respectively. the least weight of 100 seeds 31.09 g and 32.99 g, respectively was recorded from extra early maize. comparing the maize grain yield, the result indicated significant difference (p<0.05) in both cropping seasons. farz 32 had the highest grain yield, 4.37 and 4.30 tonnes per hectare in 2015 and 2016 in both cropping seasons. oba super 2 had 4.30 and 4.20 tonnes per hectare in 2015 and 2016. the local cultivar uweb had 2.49 and 2.59 tonnes per hectare grain yield in both years. the least grain yield, 2.32 and 2.45 tonnes per hectare, respectively was from extra early maize. oba, farz -32, oba super 2 and oba 98 were recommended to farmers in the study area. keywords: maize, varieties and yield 1 department of crop production, college of agronomy, federal university of agriculture makurdi benue state nigeria 2 department of crop science, faculty of agriculture, akwa ibom state university obio akpa campus. 3 department of crop science, faculty of agriculture, university of uyo,uyo akwa ibom state, nigeria * corresponding author’s email:esangdemben@gmail.com/iykeh2007@yahoo.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 93 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction maize (zea mays l.) is ranked third after wheat and rice in the world food grain production. it is grown extensively in both tropical and temperate parts of world. in 2017, maize production for nigeria was 10.4 million tonnes. though nigeria maize production fluctuated substantially in recent years, it tended to increase through 1968 2017 period ending at 10.4 million tonnes in 2017 (fao,2018). according to statista’s world corn production by country 2016/17, nigeria only produces 7.2 million metric tons of maize, a good chunk of africa’s corn production but considerably small when compared to usa’s corn production which stands at 384 million metric units. maize has different planting seasons depending on location and takes an average of 2 – 4 months to reach harvest. maize is usually planted in wellloosed, well-drained soil with compost added to the planting area before planting begins. maize is a good source of vitamins, minerals, and dietary fiber. especially since a lot of small-scale farmers are involved in maize farming, it makes it an affordable source of vitamins and minerals for people living in rural areas. grains crop produce in nigeria ranges from; maize, rice, cowpea, soybean, sorghum including millet (adekunle and nabinta,2000). food and agricultural organization (2009) data indicated increase in maize production in nigeria, in part because of the plant ability to strive in different ecological zone within the country. maize is one of the most important grains in the world. the crop is consumed as staple food in nigeria, accounting for about 43% calorie in the diet of an average nigerian (nweke,2004). several studies on maize production has pointed out the crop increased across all agro ecological zones of the country. the crop has been utilized by food processing industries, pharmaceutical, herbal including medicinal sectors. the crop was reported by ayeni (1991) to be used as local ‘cash crop’, indicating that 30% of land has been devoted to maize cultivation. increase in maize production to 1-3 hectares in any farming system was reported by ogunsumi et al (2005) to be able to combat hunger in household, in addition to increase food production especially in africa. increase in maize production from 612 thousand tonnes to 70195 thousand tonnes has been reported by alabi and esobhawan (2006), representing 1000% increase. about 561397.29 hectares of arable land in nigeria has been put into maize production with increase in the crop price, pointing to the importance of maize in the country’s economy. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 94 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org maize is usually been intercropped, especially among the subsistence farmers in semi intensive system of farming. survey by eneh and onwubuja (1992) presented maize mixed cropping as a means of better utilization of land and increase in annual crop output, when compared to maize monocropping. the large hectares of land been devoted to maize production indicates the potentials of the crop in fighting global food shortages. report by iita (2014) indicated maize production at 8 million tons in nigeria. annual production of maize in nigeria accounts to a value of 5.6 million tons (cbn,1992). hartmans (1985) findings revealed that maize is cultivation to 1 million hectares in nigeria , out of the 9 million hectares cultivated in africa, presenting nigeria as one of the exporter of maize and the largest african producer of maize, contributing to increase production of crops to feed the fast growing human population, especially in developing countries like nigeria. inspite of the fact that maize is cultivated virtually in every village and hamlet in nigeria, the production of the crop for human consumption, livestock feeds and other multifarious industrial uses, is absolutely inadequate in nigeria and other countries in africa. this could be as a result of increased in domestic and industries use of maize. increase in human population could be another factor while pest /diseases, poor soil fertility and unavailability of improved cultivars that could perform in different agro-ecology were among the major challenges of maize production. there is therefore an urgent need to double the national annual maize production through expansion of land under cultivation by selecting appropriate maize variety (ies) suitable to high humid agro ecological zone. material and methods the study was conducted at the national cereals research institute (ncri), uyo outstation, akwa ibom state, during the early and late planting season of 2017 between the months of march and december. the experimental site is situated between latitude 04o58' n and longitude 07o56'e and about 67 m above sea level. the area which lies within the humid tropical rainforest zone of southeastern nigeria has average annual rainfall of about 2500 mm and mean monthly sunshine of about 3.14 hours. the mean annual temperature range is 26°c28°c. uyo has an annual mean relative humidity of 79% and evaporation rate of 2.6 cm2. the rainfall pattern of uyo is bimodal. rain usually starts in midmarch and ends in mid-november, with a short period of relative moisture stress in august traditionally referred american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 95 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org to as “august break” (peters et al., 1989). temperatures are generally highest in the months of february through april (peters et al., 1989).the soil has been described as a typical acid soil. the experiment was carried out on a plot that had been cultivated continuously by other researchers and prior to the experiment; cassava was harvested on the experimental plot in november, 2014, while garden egg was harvested in july 2015 before planting in march, 2015 and 2016. the experiment was laid out in a randomized complete block design and replicated three times. the treatments were namely: uwep (local). farz 32, oba super 2, oba 98, quality protein maize (qpm), extra-early and suwan-i-sr. the local variety was obtained locally while oba super, suwan-i-sr, farz 32, quality protein maize (qpm), extra-early and oba 98 were obtained from national seed service umudike, umuahia abia state. the experimental area measured 26m x 19m. each replicate contained 5 plots, each measuring 5m x 4m. each plot and each replicate were separated by a path of 1.0 m. the maize seeds were planted on april 30, 2015 and 2016 at a planting distance of 75 cm x 30 cm with three seeds per hole which were later thinned to one stand per hole, giving a plant population of about 44444.44 stands of maize per hectare. inorganic fertilizer was obtained from the procurement and distribution unit of akwa ibom state ministry of agriculture and natural resources. the fertilizer brand obtained was npk-15:15:15. the method of application was ring method at the rate of 400kg/ha. fertilizer application was done three weeks after planting (wap). application of fertilizer was done 5 cm away from plant roots to avoid wilting of crops. weeding was done manually, twice, during the growing period of crop at three and six weeks after planting (3 wap and 6 wap). there was no serious pest attack. however, minor pests observed were leaf eating beetles and grasshoppers which were picked manually. data collection and analysis the evaluation of the growth parameters of crop planted was done at three weeks interval from planting till tasseling stage. five crops were tagged per plot and used for sampling. the growth parameters measured were: maize plants were measured from the base to the tip and the means calculated. maize leaves were measured from base to tip using a metre rule. this was determined by measuring the width of leaves at three different points (distal, middle and proximate points) and finding the mean. this was determined on functional leaves of tagged american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 96 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org plants, using the length –width portions method and then subjected same to a correction factor of 0.75 (singh and saxena, 1965) using a correction factor of 0.75 l x w x 0.75 = leaf area where l = length of leaf w = width of leaf (widest portion) number of kernels per row was done by counting the total number of kernels in each row. number of kernels per cob was determined by counting the total number of kernels in a dehusked cob. the weight of 100 dry kernels was taken using a measuring scale. this was determined by taking the weight of maize grains and the mean expressed in tonnes per hectare. data collected were subjected to analysis of variance and means that showed significant difference were separated using least significant difference (lsd) at 5% probability level. results the result showed that all the maize varieties were significantly different in plant height (p ≤ 0.05) at 3, 6 and 9 wap in both cropping seasons, with far 32 was the tallest at 9wap, 159.37 and 163.33 cm in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. oba super 2 had the least height (192.60cm). suwan-1-sr was 157.35 cm and 153.13 cm tall at 9 wap, in both cropping seasons. the shortest variety, 121.12 and 122.61 cm, respectively at 9wap was recorded in qpm. the local adaptable variety uweb was 131.70 cm and 135.29 cm tall in 2015 and 2016, respectively at 9wap. the number of maize leaves per plant as influenced by varieties showed no significant different (p>0.05) in both cropping seasons (table 2). the result showed that all the maize varieties were significantly different for leaf area (p ≤ 0.05) at 3, 6 and 9 wap. farz 32 had the largest leaf area; 97.70, 498.20 and 762.48 cm2 at 3, 6 and 9 awp, respectively in 2015. in 2016 cropping season, the corresponding leaf area values were recorded; 96.60, 512.01 and 779.40 cm2, respectively. this was followed by 78.62, 481.70 and 741.18 cm2, respectively in 2015 recorded from oba super 2 variety. in 2016, oba super 2 had 72.33, 477.64 and 749.69 cm2 leaf area, respectively. suwan-1-sr had 699.80 cm2 and 695.95 cm2 leaf area at 9wap in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. uweb the local variety american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 97 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org had the least leaf area at 3, 6 and 9 wap in both cropping seasons (table 3). the leaf area recorded from uweb was 57.30, 325.10 and 469.55 cm2 at 3, 6 and 9 wap in 2015. in 2016, the leaf area of 62.33, 341.44 and 485.98 cm2 at 3, 6 and 9 wap, respectively was recorded from uweb. yield components of maize as influenced by varieties is presented in table 5. the result indicated significant difference (p<0.05) in number of kernel rows per cob. oba super 2 had the highest number of kernel row per cob, 16.33 and 15.20 in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. this was followed by 15.83 and 15.18 rows per cob, respectively recorded from farz 32. uweb, the local variety had 11.30 and 11.25 rows per cob in both cropping seasons. number of kernels per plant as influenced by varieties varied significantly in bothcropping seasons (table 5). oba 98 had the highest number of kernel per row, 27.31 and 27.30 in 2015 and 2016, respectively. this was followed by 26.31 and 27.30 kernels per row. the least number of kernels per cob 19.49 and 18.34, respectively was recorded from uweb. weight of 100 seeds of maize grain as influenced by varieties is presented in table 6. the weight of grains varied significantly different. farz 32 had the heaviest 100 grain weight, 42.60 g and 41.30 g in 2015 and 2016, respectively. oba 98 had 38.60 and 37.99 100 grain weight in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. oba super 2 had 36.60 and 36.78 g 100 seeds weight, respectively. the least weight of 100 seeds 31.09 g and 32.99 g, respectively was recorded from extra early maize. comparing the maize grain yield, the result indicated significant difference (p<0.05) in both cropping seasons (table 6). farz 32 had the highest grain yield, 4.37 and 4.30 tonnes per hectare in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. oba super 2 produced 4.30 and 4.20 tonnes per hectare in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. oba 98 had 4.00 and 3.70 tonnes per hectare of grain yield in both cropping seasons while suwan-1-sr produced 3.90 and 3.84 tonnes per hectare in both cropping seasons. the local cultivar uweb had 2.49 and 2.59 tonnes per hectare grain yield in 2015 and 2016 cropping seasons, respectively. the least grain yield, 2.32 and 2.45 tonnes per hectare, respectively was from extal early maize variety. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 98 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org discussion the result indicated that the growing of the hybrid maize types oba 98, oba super 2, farz 32 gave the highest level of output than the local landrace uweb and extral early maize. this result agrees with (monday, 2018) who noted that the use of hybrid maize varieties for propagation leads to greater productivity. the result also indicated that out of the hybrid maize varieties farz 32 performed best (4.32tonnes/ha). this is in line with udoh and ndon (2016) who noted that the hybrid varieties of maize yield from 4-6tonnes/ha. it was also observed that factors such as genetic makeup influenced the growth and yield of the various varieties. an in depth study of the past maize improvement programmes revealed that impressive increase in yield of maize grain in the united states of america during the 20th century was due mainly to the increase uses of hybrid maize seeds (eberhant, 1979) therefore farz 32, oba super 2, and oba 98 could be subjected to more field trials and incorporated into breeding programmes for selection in uyo. table 1: plant height (cm) as influenced by maize genotypes maize varieties 2015 2016 weeks after planting weeks after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 oba super 2 33.01 90.15 139.72 31.12 88.66 141.45 farz 32 50.13 101.33 159.37 51.02 112.81 163.33 oba 98 35.10 70.70 142.70 32.55 71.11 143.04 suwan-i-sr 40.15 99.70 157.35 39.45 101.53 153.13 qpm 28.55 70.55 121.12 27.61 73.07 122.61 extra early 40.12 94.50 148.30 41.12 97.33 145.67 uweb (local) 28.00 77.70 131.70 30.13 60.44 135.29 lsd (p ≤ 0.05) 3.31 5.35 5.99 3.11 6.01 6.88 table 2: number of leaves per plant as influenced by maize genotypes american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 99 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org maize varieties 2015 2016 weeks after planting weeks after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 oba super 2 7.12 10.55 13.81 7.15 10.75 12.81 farz 32 7.33 11.38 13.56 7.70 11.45 13.33 oba 98 6.56 12.13 14.10 7.01 12.74 14.32 suwan-i-sr 7.18 11.39 14.90 7.55 11.70 14.50 qpm 6.23 10.55 12.56 6.13 10.59 12.77 extra early 8.34 12.70 13.77 8.51 12.91 13.81 uweb (local) 6.71 11.30 12.56 6.62 11.42 12.51 lsd (p ≤ 0.05) ns ns ns ns ns ns *ns= not significant table 3: leaf area (cm2) as influenced by maize varieties maize varieties 2015 2016 weeks after planting weeks after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 oba super 2 78.62 481.70 741.18 72.33 477.64 749.69 farz 32 97.70 498.20 762.48 96.60 512.01 779.40 oba 98 70.50 334.17 525.20 70.55 344.21 562.50 suwan-i-sr 70.20 471.10 699.80 71.30 475.55 695.95 qpm 72.55 399.56 561.40 76.40 403.11 580.22 extra early 77.50 451.33 545.28 78.10 461.73 547.60 uweb (local) 57.30 325.10 469.55 62.33 341.44 485.98 lsd (p ≤ 0.05) 2.69 5.18 7.31 3.01 5.25 6.75 table 5: yield components as influenced by maize genotypes american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 100 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org 2015 2016 number of kernel rows per cob number of kernels per row number of kernel rows per cob number of kernels per row oba super 2 16.33 26.43 15.20 27.40 farz 32 15.83 26.21 15.18 26.20 oba 98 14.16 26.31 13.20 27.30 suwan-1-sr 14.45 23.70 13.50 25.70 qpm 12.55 22.40 12.78 24.89 extra early 13.33 24..77 12.11 23.45 uweb(local) 11.30 19.49 11.25 18.34 lsd(p≤0.05) 1.44 2.24 1.76 2.11 table 6: yield of maize as influenced by varieties genotypes 2015 2016 dry weight of 100 kernels (g) maize grain yield (t/ha) dry weight of 100 kernels (g) maize grain yield (t/ha) oba super 2 36.60 4.30 36.78 4.20 farz 32 42.60 4.37 41.30 4.30 oba 98 38.60 4.00 37.99 3.70 suwan-1-sr 35.00 3.90 34.20 3.84 qpm 32.90 2.89 33.78 2.99 extra early 31.09 2.32 32.99 2.45 uweb(local) 33.30 2.49 33.00 2.59 lsd (p ≤ 0.05) 1.55 1.12 1.67 0.02 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 101 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org conclusion the study revealed that farz -32, oba super 2, and oba 98 varieties could grantee high maize grain yield in high humid region of nigeria. farmers in the zone were advised to select the three maize varieties above for high grain yield. adoption of the three varieties could enhanced high productivity of maize in the study area. references adekunle, o. a. and nabinta, r. t. (2000). indigenous storage structure of cereals, by women farmers in kaltungo area of gombe state, nigerian. journal of rural economics and development,14 (1): 47–54. alabi, r. a. and esobhawan, a.o (2006). relative economic importance of maize/okra intercrop in rainforest zone, nigeria. journal of central european agriculture, vol., 7 (3): 433-438. ayeni, a. o. (1991). “maize production in nigeria: problems and prospects”. journal of food and agriculture, 2: 123-129. cbn, central bank of nigeria (1992). annual report and statement of account. centralbank of nigeria, lagos. eneh, f. k., onwubuja, i. i. and inedia. (1997). the economics on intercropping young oil palms with maize and cassava. nigerian journal of palms and oils seeds, 13: 11 fao, food and agricultural organization (2009). production year book. statistical series, 142 (85): 15-25. hartmans, e. h. (1985). strategies for solving crop production problems of subsaharan africa. international institute of tropical agriculture, ibadan, nigeria 7– 8. iita, international institute of tropical agriculture (2014). maize (zea mays l.) production. http://www.iita.org/maize. accessed april1 2016. monday,s.a. (2018). economics value of maize (zea mays l) in nigeria and its imparts oin global food production. international journal of scientific world, 6(1)27-30. nweke, f (2004). new challenges in the cassava transformation in nigeria and ghana. eptd discussion paper no. 118. environment and production technology division. international food policy research institute 2033 k street, nw. washington, d.c. 20066 usa. ogunsumi, l. o., ewuola, s. o. and daramola, a. g. (2005). socioeconomic impact assessment of maize production technology on farmers’ welfare in southwest, nigeria. journal of central european agriculture, 6 (1): 15-26. peters, s. w., usoro, e. j. udo, e. j. obot, u. w. and okpon, s. n. (eds), (1989). akwa ibom state: physical background, soils and land use and ecological problems. a technical report of the task force on and land use survey, akwa ibom state. 603p. udoh, d. j. and ndon, b. a. (2016). crop production techniques for the tropics. concept publication limited, lagos, nigeria. p. 293. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology optimizing the planting density of lettuce (lactuca sativa) with tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) in a recirculation aquaponic system a.q.m. robiul kawser*1, md. amzad hossain1, mst. fahamida yeasmin1 abstract an experiment was conducted for a period of 60 days to optimize the planting density of lettuce (lactuca sativa) with tilapia in a shallow water recirculation aquaponic system. four different planting density/m2 i.e. 15 plants/m2, 20 plants/m2, 25 plants/m2 and 30 plants/m2 of hydroponic trough was used as four different treatments whereas, the stocking density of tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) was 100 fish/m3 for all the treatments. fish was reared in 300 l size tank and fed up to satiation twice a day with commercially available floating pellet with 30% protein level. the size of each of the hydroponic trough was 30 l which were made up with gi steel sheet. styrofoam was used to cover up the hydroponic trough and made necessary number of hole according to the planting density of different treatment to support the plants in water medium. during the experimental period different water quality parameters were monitored regularly. growth and yield of lettuce were measured by means of number of leafs, plant height (cm), leaf area (cm2), dry matter (g) and wet yield (kg/m2). whereas, tilapia’s growth performances were evaluated on the basis of weight gain (g), production (kg/m3), specific growth rate (% per day) and feed conversion ratio. at the end of the experiment, it was observed that lettuce production were highest in t3 (25 plants/m2), although the growth performance was significantly better in t1 and t2 because of higher nutrient availability in these hydroponic trough. fish production was significantly higher in t3 and t4 compared to t1 and t2, although, highest production were observed in t4. regarding both lettuce and tilapia production with suitable water quality parameters, it was therefore, optimized that, 25 plants/m2 area of hydroponic trough was ideal to support 100 tilapia/m3 in a shallow water based recirculation aquaponic system. key words: aquaponic, lettuce (lactuca sativa), tilapia (oreochromis niloticus), production ______________________________________________________________________________ 1*departement of aquaculture, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur 1706, bangladesh, e-mail: robiulkawser@bsmrau.edu.bd *corresponding author 1issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction aquaculture is the fastest growing food production sector in the world. compare to poultry and cattle, fish provide protein of high quality (sargent and tacon, 1999). therefore, fish and other fishery products can be the key to combat malnutrition problem in bangladesh. fish provides 60% of national animal protein consumption and 11 percent of the total population are engaged in fisheries sector in bangladesh (dof, 2014). the per capita fish consumption in bangladesh was 19.30 kg whereas the requirement is 21.90 kg (dof, 2014). bangladesh is facing serious problem of loss of agricultural land due to horizontal expansion of aquaculture. in that case development of recirculating aquaponic system can reduce the pressure on land and utilized the resource properly. aquaponics is a sustainable food production system that combines conventional aquaculture, with hydroponics (cultivating plants in water) in a symbiotic environment. the production of fish and vegetables through the integration of fish aquaculture and plant production has been demonstrated (fitzsimmons, 1991; fitzsimmons, 1992; rakocy et al., 2004; mcmurtry et al., 1997; chaves, 2000; sabidov, 2004; castro et al., 2006; diver, 2006). in aquaculture, effluents accumulate in the water, increasing toxicity for the fish. this water is led to a hydroponic system where the by-products from the aquaculture are broken down by nitrogen fixing bacteria, then filtered out by the plants as nutrients, after which the cleaned water is recirculate back to the animals. recirculation aquaculture systems (ras) represent a new and unique way to farm fish. instead of the traditional method of growing fish outdoors in open ponds and raceways, this system rears fish at high densities, in indoor tanks with a controlled environment. recirculating systems filter and clean the water for recycling back through fish culture tanks. new water is added to the tanks only to make up for splash out and evaporation and for that used to flush out waste materials. recirculated water can be passed through a hydroponic system. plants are grown as in hydroponics systems, with their roots immersed in the nutrient-rich effluent water. this enables them to filter out the ammonia that is toxic to the aquatic animals, or its metabolites. after the water has passed through the hydroponic subsystem, it is cleaned and oxygenated, and can return to the aquaculture vessels. this cycle is continuous. now a day, the natural production of fish has been decreased alarmingly for various factors. the practitioners implemented improved technology to increase fish production per unit area within minimum period of time. they also introduced various culture methods on the basis of varying characteristics of water bodies. all those aquaculture effort are mainly conducted in ponds. however, land available for construction of ponds is limited in our country. therefore, new aquaculture techniques need to be introduced. in bangladesh, the world's most densely populated country, most farmers use agrochemicals to enhance food production and 2issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology storage life, though the country lack oversight on safe levels of chemicals in foods for human consumption. to combat these issues efforts have been made in bangladesh to produce low-cost aquaponics system. although popular articles are available in this regards however, scientific information on the aquaponic system in bangladesh is limited. but it is important to determine the number of plants/ m2 of a specific species is optimum to neutralize the waste materials produced in fish rearing tank. this study aimed to find out the optimum planting density of lettuce (lactuca sativa) for a definite fish stock without compromising the vegetable production. materials and methods experimental design the experiment was conducted for a period of 60 days from 20th september to 20th november, 2015 in department of aquaculture field research area of bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university (bsmrau). the experiment was designed into four treatment groups (t1, t2, t3 and t4) consist of four different planting density of lettuce (lectuca sativa) each having three replications (table 1). size of the fish rearing tanks was 300 liter where fish were stocked at a density of 100 fish/m3 in each of these tanks. commercially made floating pellets (30% protein) was used to fed the fish. table 1: the experiment was conducted with four treatments, each treatment having three replicates as follow. treatment planting density of lettuce replication tilapia stocking density tilapia tank size vegetable tray size t1 15 plants/m2 3 100 fish/m3 300 l 30 l t2 20 plants/ m2 3 100 fish/m3 300 l 30 l t3 25 plants/ m2 3 100 fish/m3 300 l 30 l t4 30 plants/ m2 3 100 fish/m3 300 l 30 l stocking and rearing of fish species juveniles of nile tilapia (oreochoromis niloticus) of 10.0 ± 0.7 g size was collected from a commercial nursery and transported to bsmrau campus and reared in a 500l tank until use. in the beginning of the experiment, fish was weighed individually, selected and distributed into each of the 300l tanks at a stocking 3issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology density of 100 fish/m3. each of the tanks was connected to a vegetable culture tray. fish was fed with commercially available pellet. the fish was fed to satiation within 10 minute twice daily (0900 and 1500 hr.), six days a week. all tanks were uniformly aerated. tank was connected to a recirculation system with a suitable recirculation speed of 2 l/min. setting vegetable tray vegetables were grown in trays made of gi sheets. a general floating bed hydroponic method was followed (lennard and leonard, 2006). the rectangular size trays were of 300 l capacity. the trays were filled with 20 l of water as a growing media. then trays were covered by styrofoam sheet which was used to support the plant in aquaponic system. a water pump of 12 watt capacity was used in each fish rearing tanks to lift the water into the vegetable tray. appropriate tubing was used to connect the vegetable trays with the fish culture tanks. lettuces seeds were sown in nursery beds and allow growing for 15 days in traditional ways before transplanting into the experimental aquaponic systems. plantlets of lettuce were then transplanted from the nursery beds to vegetable tray at the planting densities mentioned in the experimentation design in the previous section. fish sampling fish was sampled fortnightly and growth and survival monitored. at the end of the rearing period, all fish in a tank was counted for survival data. length and weight of 10 fish from each tank was taken to know the growth performance. growth parameters of fish growth of fry in length (cm) and weight (g) was measured and the following parameters were used to evaluate fry growth: the specific growth rate (sgr) was calculated as: sgr = 100 (ln mean final weight) (ln mean initial weight) ÷ culture days. feed conversion ratio (fcr) was calculated as: fcr = total feed given ÷ total wet weight gain. % weight gain (g) was calculated as: 100 ((mean final weight mean initial weight)/ mean initial weight). growth of vegetable lettuce growth was monitored on the basis of number of leaf, plant height (cm), leaf area (cm2), dry matter (g) and fresh vegetables production (kg/m2). 4issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology monitoring water quality maximum-minimum temperatures were recorded daily in each tank. for water parameters, samples from the inflow pipe and fish culture tanks were collected. dissolved oxygen (do) and ph was measured using hach oxygen and ph meters, respectively (hach co., loveland, colorado). total ammonia nitrogen (nh3n), nitrite nitrogen (no2-n), nitrate nitrogen (no3-n) and total phosphorus (tp) was determined following the methodology of apha (1989). data analysis data obtained from this experiment were subjected to one-way analysis of variance (anova) while least significant difference (lsd) test was used to compare treatment means. all statistical analyses were performed using the statistical software package (statistics 10). results and discussions water quality parameters during the experimental period the average temperature of fish rearing tanks and vegetables growing medium was ranges from 24 to 280c. ph of the fish rearing tank and vegetables growing medium was ranges from 6.4 to 6.8 and 5.2 to 5.8, respectively. percentage removal of dissolved oxygen (do), total ammonia nitrogen (tan), nitrite nitrogen (no2-n), nitrate nitrogen (no3-n) and total phosphorus (tp) was measured to determine the water quality (table 2). dissolved oxygen level during this experimental period was ranges from 5.1 to 5.8 mg/l. significant difference was observed in tan, nitrite–n, nitrate–n and total phosphorus concentrations among different planting density of lactuca sativa. the percentage removal of water quality parameters was increased with increasing in plants number/m2 of hydroponic bed until the maximum was reached at 25 plants/ m2 in t3. further increasing plant number did not significantly increase the percent removal of ammonia and phosphorus level. highest ammonia level during this experimental period was 2.1±0.4 mg/l at a planting density of 15 plants/ m2. dof (2008) have reported that the range of suitable dissolved oxygen for fish culture would be 5-8 mg/1. aminul (1996) has stated that the ph values from 6.7 to 7.5 and water temperature of 25°c to 35°c was the best suited for fish production. el-sayed (1999) has reported that o. niloticus can tolerate ammonia level up to 3.5ppm. therefore, the ammonia level during the present study was within the suitable range for fish production. considering the above discussion it can be conclude that t3 was the best among different planting density to remove harmful products from fish rearing tank. 5issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 2: different water quality parameter of recirculation aquaponic system. treatment water quality parameters do tan no2-n no3-n tp t1 influent (mg/l) effluent (mg/l) removal (%) 5.1 1.4 72.5b 13.4 2.1 84.3c 0.71 0.32 54.9d 20.2 6.3 68.8b 16.6 6.8 59.0c t2 influent (mg/l) effluent (mg/l) removal (%) 5.8 1.4 75.8a 13.1 1.9 85.5b 0.65 0.23 64.6c 20.1 6.1 69.7b 16.5 6.1 63.0b t3 influent (mg/l) effluent (mg/l) removal (%) 6.1 1.7 72.1b 13.3 1.0 92.5a 0.66 0.16 75.8b 20.2 5.5 72.8a 16.5 5.7 65.5a t4 influent (mg/l) effluent (mg/l) removal (%) 5.8 1.5 74.1c 13.6 1.1 91.9a 0.62 0.16 74.2a 19.7 5.5 72.1a 16.1 5.6 65.2a means with different superscript in a column are significantly different (p≤0.5) growth and yield of lettuce (lactuca sativa) growth of lettuce (lactuca sativa) was determined on the basis of number of leaves, plant height (cm), leaf area (cm2) and dry matter content. it was observed that, the growth of lettuce was significantly different at different planting density. the growth rate of plants was significantly higher in t1 and t2 compare to t3 and t4. this was due to higher amount of nutrient availability to each plant from fish rearing tanks at a low planting density in t1 and t2 compare to t3 and t4. but the total production/m2 area of hydroponic bed was significantly higher in t3 and t4 (table 3). this was due to higher planting density per m2 area of hydroponic bed in t3 and t4 compare to t1 and t2. as the number of plants per m2 increases, it reduces the nutrient availability to each plant. so the balance between nutrient availability and number of plants/m2 is crucial although critical. without hampering the total production of vegetables, a stocking density of 100 tilapia/m3 can support 25 plants/m2 of hydroponic unit where the maximum yield was 2.2 kg of lettuce/m2 in t3. further increase in the number of plants did not yield higher production. this may be due to less nutrient availability to each plant as the higher planting density and nutrient availability is inversely correlated. 6issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 3: effect of planting density on the growth and yield of lettuce (lactuca sativa). growth parameters yield (kg/m2) treatment no. of leaves plant height (cm) leaf area (cm2) dry matter (g) t1 16.6a 18.4a 78.5a 117.7a 1.5b t2 15.9ab 16.3bc 74.2b 117.3a 1.7b t3 15.2b 16.7bc 73.5b 115.1b 2.2a t4 15.0b 15.9c 71.4c 111.8c 1.9a means with different superscript in a row are significantly different (p≤0.5) wilson (2006) has reported that, in floating bed system lettuce (lactuca sativa) production was 4.47 kg/m2 from 80 l size hydroponic unit. plants grow best and uptake nutrients at a lower ph (5.5-6.5) (resh 2001). specifically, lettuce will grow well in a ph range of 5.5-6.5 (resh, 2001). at a stocking density of 2 kg/m3 of tilapia, the lettuce production was 4.32 kg/m2 (licamele, 2009). growth and survival of tilapia (o. niloticus) the average initial weight of o. niloticus was 10±0.70 g in all the treatments (table 1). the average final weight of o. niloticus connected with different hydroponic trough differ significantly (p≤0.05). maximum final weight, % weight gain and production were highest in t3 where plants were stocked at 25 numbers/m2 and did differ significantly (p≤0.05) with t1. although, no significant difference (p≥0.05) was observed in sgr and fcr value of different treatments. 100 percent survival rate was observed in t3 and t4 which was significantly higher (p≤0.05) than t1 and t2. table 4: fish growth performance and survival rate at different planting density after 60 days of rearing period. t1 t2 t3 t4 initial weight (g) 10±0.7a 10±0.7a 10±0.7a 10±0.7a final weight (g) 65.5±2.2b 66.8±1.7b 70.7±1.5a 71.0±1.1a weight gain (g) 55.5±1.5b 56.8±1.0b 60.7±0.8a 61.0±0.4a weight gain (%) 555±2.8d 567±1.0c 607±1.0b 610±1.0a production (kg/m3) 6.1±1.1b 6.4±1.3ab 7.07±1.1a 7.1±1.4a survival rate (%) 96±2.0c 98±1.0b 100±1.0a 100±1.0a sgr (% per day) 3.13±0.8a 3.17±1.0a 3.25±0.6a 3.26±0.9a fcr 1.8±0.5a 1.6±0.7a 1.6±0.7a 1.7±0.6a means with different superscript in a row are significantly different (p≤0.5) cruz and laudencia (1978) have studied the protein requirements of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) fingerlings and concluded that 20-30% crude protein required in the ration for optimum growth. production 7issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology of o. niloticus in a recirculating aquaponic system was 6.38 kg/m3 during 10 weeks of experimental period (rakocy et al., 2006). cruz and ridha (2001) have conducted an experiment on growth and survival rates of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) juveniles reared in a recirculating system and found that the survival rate was 100% in both cases. mohamed (2009) has conducted an experiment on the effect of dietary protein level on the growth performance and body composition of monosex nile tilapia (o. niloticus) reared in fertilized tank and observed 97% survival. resley et al. (2009) have obtained sgr value of 4.7 (% day-1) in the growth and survival of juvenile cobia, in a recirculating aquaculture system. kamal et al. (2006) have obtained sgr value of 1.6 (% day-1) in an aquaponic production of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) and bell pepper (capsicum annuum) in recirculating aquaponic system. rakocy et al. (2006) have found sgr value of 4.4 (% day-1) in an intensive nile tilapia and basil aquaponic production system. figure 1: correlation between lettuces planting density/m2 with total ammonia removal (%) and total phosphorus removal (%) in fish rearing tanks. figure 2: correlation between lettuces planting density/m2 with lettuce leaf area (m2) and fish production (kg/m3). 8issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology correlation coefficient of lettuce planting density/m2 and percentage removal of total ammonia and total phosphorus was + 0.86 and + 0.91, respectively (figure 1). therefore, a strong correlation exists between planting density of lettuce and removal of harmful product for fish. so, with the increase of number plants/m2, the water quality parameters tend to become favorable for fish culture. but with the increase of planting density/m2 of hydroponic trough the amount of available nitrogen and phosphorus required for lettuce growth reduce which is signify by the strong negative correlation between planting density/m2 and lettuce leaf area (cm2) and the value of correlation coefficient was 0.94 (figure 2). as planting density/m2 and water quality is positively correlated there a positive correlation is exists between the planting density of lettuce and production (kg/m3) of fish and the value observed in this experiment was + 0.79. conclusions lettuce (lactuca sativa) growth was significantly higher in t1 and t2 but the total production (kg/m2) was highest in t3. although, no significant difference was observed in the lettuce production of t3 and t4. however, grayish color of the leaves in t4 indicates the deficiency of nitrogen and phosphorus availability in hydroponic unit was started to prominent. production of tilapia (o. niloticus) was highest in t4 but did not differ significantly with t3. therefore, it can be conclude that, a lettuce density of 25 plants/m2 can efficiently utilize the waste product produce from 100 tilapia/m3 stocking density in a shallow water recirculation aquaponic system. references aminul, i.m. (1996). qualities of water and soil in aquaculture. department of fisheries publication, bangladesh. apha (1989). american public health association, standard methods for examination of water and waste water, new york, 17th edition. castro, r. s., borges, c.m.s. and neto, f. b. (2006). increasing cherry tomato yields using fish effluent as irrigation in northeastern brazil. scientia horticulturae, 110(1):44-50. chaves, p.a., laird, l.m., sutherland r. and beltrao j. (2000). assessment of fish culture water improvement through integration of hydroponically grown lettuce. water science and technology, 42(1-2), 43-47. cruz, e.m. and laudencia, i.l. (1978). preliminary study on the protein requirements of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) fingerlings. fisheries research journal philippines, 3(2), 34-38. 9issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology cruz, e.m. and ridha, m.t. (2001). growth and survival rates of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) juveniles reared in a recirculating system fed with floating and sinking pellets. asian fisheries society, manila, philippines, 14, 9-16. diver s. (2006). aquaponics integration of hydroponics with aquaculture. retrieved from http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/travis/aquaponic.pdf. dof. (2008). matsha sampad unnoyan ovijan. department of fisheries, dhaka, 79-85. dof. (2014). fisheries statistical yearbook. department of fisheries, dhaka, 1-2. el-sayed, a.f.m. (1999). alternative dietary protein sources for farmed tilapia. journal of tilapia culture, cabi publishing, cambridge, ma, 277. fitzsimmons, k.m. (1992). fertilizer value of aquaculture effluents and land disposal as a best management practice. proceedings from the national extension aquaculture workshop, arkansas state 4-h center. fitzsimmons, k. m. (1991). intensive tilapia production integrated with field crops in southwest u.s. in: 3rd international symposium on tilapia aquaculture, iclarm, manilla, philipines. kamal, s.m. (2006). aquaponic production of nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) and bell pepper (capsicum annuum) in recirculating water system. egypt journal of aquaculture biodiversity and fisheries, 10, 85-97. lennard, w.a. and leonard, b.v. (2006). a comparison of three different hydroponic sub-systems (gravel bed, floating and nutrient film technique) in an aquaponic test system. aquaculture international, 14:539–550. licamele, j. d. (2009). biomass production and nutrient dynamics in an aquaponics system. phd thesis. university of arizona. mcmurtry, m.r., sanders, d.c., hodson, r.g. and hanning, b.c.c. (1997). efficiency of water use of an integrated fish and vegetable co-culture system. journal of the world aquaculture society, 28, 420432. mohamed, h.b. (2009). effect of dietary protein level on the growth performance and body composition of monosex nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus l.) reared in fertilized tank. pakistan journal of nutrition, 8(5), 674-678. 10issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology rakocy, j.e., bailey, d.s., shultz, r.c. and thoman, e.s. (2004) update on tilapia and vegetable production in the uvi aquaponic system. university of the virgin islands (uvi), kingshill, 850. rakocy, j.e., masser, m.p. and losordo, t.m. (2006). recirculating aquaculture tank production systems: aquaponics—integrating fish and plant culture. retrieved from http://www2.ca.uky.edu/wkrec/454fs.pdf. resh, h. m. (2001). hydroponic food production. woodbridge press publishing company. santa barbra, ca 93012. resley, m.j., webb, k.a. and holt, g.j. (2005). growth and survival of juvenile cobia (rachycentron canadum), at different salinities in a recirculating aquaculture system. aquaculture, 253, 398–407. sabidov, n. a. (2004). annual report of greenhouse crops program for 2003/2004. cdc south, brooks, srac publication no. 454. sargent, j.r. and tacon, a.g.j. (1999). development of farmed fish: a nutritionally necessary alternative to meat. proceedings of the nutrition society, 58, 377-383. 11issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2020, volume 4 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agro-forestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science experimental agriculture food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 30 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org forecasting natural gas demand, production and analyzing the future of cng & lpg as an alternatives for vehicles fuel in bangladesh hasanuzzaman showrav1*, noor ahmed kawsar2, md. numan hossain3, dr. m. farhad howladar4 abstract natural gas is one of the primary energy sources of bangladesh. demand of natural gas in bangladesh increasing day by day in various sectors. but, due to limited resources, energy crisis increasing gradually. this research work deigned to find out the natural gas crisis via forecasting gas demand and production. at the end, it also analyzed the future of cng and lpg based vehicles in bangladesh as an alternative of natural gas dependency. the prediction of gas demand and production has been conducted based on the data from petrobangla. and the future of cng and lpg based vehicles were analyzed based on different cng & lpg conversion company data. demand forecasting presented three scenarios; “scenario a, scenario b and scenario c” and production forecasting has been displayed as three cases; “case a, case b, case c”. the comparison of cng and lpg has been made based on different parameters like conversion cost, calorific fuel value, fuel cost, mileage, risk of explosion of fuel cylinder, carbon emission etc. the outcomes of gas demand forecasting represented that gas demand is growing in every scenario. the results of production forecasting denoted as existing gas fields production are decreasing gradually. it also indicated, if new reserves would be discovered, then the production will be maximized. on the other hand, cng conversion rate will be declined due to the shortage of natural gas. in conclusion, the investigation of different parameter of cng & lpg confirmed, lpg is suitable for cope up with the future crisis. hence lpg based vehicles need to take place of cng based vehicles. keywords: natural gas, gas demand forecasting, production forecasting, lpg, cng 1, 2, 3 & 4 dept. of petroleum & mining engineering, shahjalal university of science & technology, sylhet-3114, bangladesh. * corresponding author’s e-mail: hasanuzzaman.showrav54@gmail.com http://journals.e-palli.org/ mailto:hasanuzzaman.showrav54@gmail.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 31 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 1. introduction bangladesh is one of the most populous countries and the energy crisis is the most important question. government of bangladesh is struggling to overcome the energy crises from the beginning of the country. daily gas demand in our country is around 4000 mmcf, but daily gas supply is around 3000 mmcf (govt. bangladesh, 2019). there exists a large gap between demand and supply as bangladesh has limited gas resources to meet up the demand. on the other hand, the bangladesh government has announced “vision 2041”. to achieve “vision 2041” one of the most important sectors is the energy sector (bd news, 2021). as gas is the leading fuel of energy of this country so to reduce the difference between demand and supply of gas bangladesh government has taken many steps. one of these is new gas reserves searching on offshore and onshore. there is a huge possibility to find new gas reserves on our offshore. on the other hand, according to the spirit of the age, conversion of vehicles into lpg vehicles is the best decision (gazco,2021). even though cng as a vehicle fuel is more popular for all but it is not suitable for us at this time because of the upcoming energy crisis (bronson,2021). following the government policy, private companies and local people are changing the policy in their energy consumption. so, to make a reliable policy for achieving the goal “vision 2041”, it is important to make a reliable energy modeling for the energy sector. in energy modeling, it is very important to comprehend the future conditions of the energy sector. thus, in describing the future state, the forecasting model is most effective by taking into account different scenarios and different parameters depending on the sector of energy consumption. this research has been conducted to analyze the future energy crisis and the source of future potential energy. this study has been designed to forecast future gas demand, gas production and alternative sources of vehicle fuels. at the end, comparing among different types of vehicle fuels, suggested the better options. 2. methodology the methodology includes data collection from different sources. data analyzed with software applications to find final output. data was collected from navana cng ltd., toma cng ltd, petrobangla’s website and from internet. navana cng ltd, toma cng provided verbal data instead of official data. data was collected from two cng conversion centers in sylhet, cng http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 32 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org and lpg conversion centers in dhaka. after collecting all of the data were analyzed by using ms excel 2016. the flowchart (fig-1) represents the methodology in details. figure-1: methodology of the study. 3. result and discussion 3.1 future gas demand forecast the forecast of future gas production has analyzed based on the three scenarios a, b and c. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 33 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 3.1.1 scenario a: modified psmp 2016 in this scenario, it assumed that gdp development rates at that point decay continuously from 8% in 2020 to 4.3% by 2041 (petrobangla, 2018). scenario a also undertakes as similar demand forecast for overall power generation as like as psmp 2016 (petrobangla, 2018). within the short-term, gas request from the control segment will increase unassumingly – instead of drop strongly. nevertheless, the gas penetration in the power system is confirmed in scenario a to decrease progressively yet significantly over the prediction period. 3.1.2 scenario b: high growth this situation accept that bangladesh will be fruitful in seeking after an export-led financial development model, as specified in the 7th five-year plan. as such, this situation expect that the 7th five-year plan’s short-term development targets will be accomplished which the gdp development rates at that point keep up at 7% from 2021 to 2041 (petrobangla, 2018). scenario b is too inferring a solid universal environment for exchange, recommending that bangladesh can secure sufficient gas moment through pipeline associations from asian nations as well as lng from indeed more extensive worldwide sources. 3.1.3 scenario c: climate change this scenario is called a climate scenario. the climate change scenario can expand if a speedy change in climate, or understanding of the climatic growth, takes place. for situation c, only a couple of coal-fired power plants will be created, whereas there will be solid improvements in renewables characteristic gas, atomic, and hydropower imports (petrobangla, 2017). this scenario moreover expects that the taken a toll of such a cleaner vitality arrangement will have an effect on bangladesh’s economy. 3.2 bangladesh historical gas consumption the utilization of natural gas in bangladesh has expanded significantly from 698 mmcf/d in 1995/96 to 2,645 mmcf/d in 2015/16, nearly 4 times increment over 20 a long time (petrobangla 2021). so, it is clear that gas consumption is increasing day by day (figure-2). 3.3 gas demand forecast the future gas demand forecasting of near future for each sector has been analysis here (figure3) and the analysis correlated with three different scenarios (a, b and c) which has been http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 34 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org introduced earlier. it has been long-established that gas demand is increasing in each and every sector. at scenario-a, gas demand is increasing in the power sector up to 2020, after that, it is decreasing because in that time government will start getting power from another source like a nuclear power plant, biofuel, coal-based thermal power plant etc. in case of scenario-c, gdp growth is the same as “scenario a” that’s why the forecasting results are similar as “scenario a” except power sector. in case of power sector gas demand is higher than “scenario a”. the reason behind it is, gdp growth rate is considered the same for “scenario-c”, but at the same time focused on clean energy. so, decreasing the coal-based power plant, whereas increasing the gas-based power plant. scenario-b maintains the increasing gas demand which is similar to the “scenario-a”, but dissimilarities are value of quantity of gas consumption. here, it is observed a high demand value over time. because "scenario b" assumed high growth of gdp, that is why the graph is steeper. as it assumed that the growth rate is high for scenario-b, so more power is needed for achieving a high growth rate. the gas demand in industry, domestic and transportation, same trending graph can be obtained in scenario a, b, c but only deference is in value. day by day household new gas users are growing, rural people who use wood cow dung for cooking and the gas are using in the transportation sector, the number of cng base vehicle is increasing day by day. 3.4 future gas production prediction three gas production scenarios are presented here to analyze the future predicted value of gas production in bangladesh. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 35 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 3.4.1 case a: proven, probable and possible (3p) reserves case-a characterized best utilize of existing areas with no extra assets found. the prediction of production for the period 2016-2041 uncovered that the production of gas per day is 2500 mm cf up to 2022 where it rapidly declining (petrobangla, 2021, 2018, 2017). figure-4 illustrated the results. 3.4.2 case b: proven, probable and possible (3p) reserves with ytf contribution: case-b displayed best utilization of remaining fields with an yet-to-find (ytf) contribution of 6.4 tcf. the ytf commitment has been given to the specialists as bapex unused, shallow sand deep offshore (petrobangla, 2018, 2017). production of onshore and shallow offshore and deep offshore areas from "yet-to-be-found" reserves has been predicted based on expectations in future exploration. it is expected that the ytf's contribution will give 2.6 tcf from modern inland areas and 2.1 and 1.7 tcf for shallow seaward areas and profound seaward areas, separately (table-1). table-1: characteristics of 7 ytf (yet to find) areas in bangladesh (petrobangla 2021; imam,2013; energy & power magazine,2021) area priority location petroleum system risk exploration company expected yet to find expected time development (year) a high onshore proven petroleum system low risk ioc, bapex mixed 3-5 tcf (thin beds 1-3 tcf 5-10 b medium onshore proven petroleum system low risk bapex only 4-6 tcf (thin beds 1-3 tcf 7-12 c high offshore shallow proven petroleum system medium risk ioc licenses 4-6 tcf 5-15 d medium onshore proven petroleum system medium risk bapex only 4-6 tcf 10-20 e low onshore proven petroleum system medium risk very few licenses currently 4-6 tcf 15-25 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 36 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org f low offshore shallow not proven petroleum system high risk no license currently 2-3 tcf 15-20 g high offshore deep discovery medium risk ioc license no information 10-25 3.4.3 case c: proven, probable and possible (3p) reserves with an additional ytf contribution case-c denoted, the best utilization of present fields with a ytf contribution based on the description from gustavson (2011), while it is expected that around 16-17 tcf can be created until 2041 concurring to the experts examination (petrobangla, 2018). there's a noteworthy ytf resource accessible within the nation. the asset is accessible both as ordinary gas but moreover thin-bed assets at existing areas. the presence and advanced geological assessment by gustavson (2011) of two autonomous sources "usgs-petrobangla joint study of 2001" and "final updated report on bangladesh petroleum potential and resource assessment 2010" enable the consultants to evaluate the yet to be found resources. the usgs-petrobangla (2001) learning may be a precise and broad consider that speaks to the most punctual and best ponder to survey the bangladesh’s unfamiliar gas asset potential. this consider decides that the unfamiliar gas assets of bangladesh extend from 8 tcf (95% likelihood) to 66 tcf (5% likelihood) with a 50% likelihood of finding 29 tcf and a cruel of 32 tcf (petrobangla, 2018). according to the gustavson (2011) and the current exploration activities, bangladesh has been divided into 7 sectors. the proven, probable and possible (3p) reserves production forecasted value in case c illustrated in figure-4. figure-4: proven, probable and possible (3p) reserves production forecast. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 37 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 4. cng (compressed natural gas) as vehicle fuel 4.1 composition of cng typically, cng is over 90% methane and little sums of ethane and other hydrocarbons. cng may contain nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and follow sums of water vapor. for the use of cng as a vehicle fuel, cng is removed from a gas delivery scheme at pressures extending from 0.3 to 1 mpa, compressed at a fueling station, and stockpiled in vehicle cylinders at pressures of around 20 mpa (demirbas,2002; bronson,2021). there is currently no uniform cng pressure from the global ng vehicle industry. 4.2 conversion to cng vehicles the number of cng changed over vehicles are expanding day by day. individuals are utilizing cng vehicles since of its endless financial benefits, security, ease of utilize and natural issues. presently transport, truck, engine car, auto-rickshaw, van, microbus, human hauler and all other shapes of vehicles are changing over to cng running motors. cng vehicles infer a cheap fuel rate for the transportation of individuals and products (momin et al,2016; wadud & khan, 2011). as shown in figures 5, many cng vehicles were during the 2015-16 period because of low fuel price. but after that, the ratio of cng vehicles decreased gradually. on the other hand, the conversion rate of vehicles into cng is decreasing day by day because of the gas crisis in bangladesh. now people are interested to convert their vehicle into lpg instated of cng (rezwanul 2021; uddin et al, 2017). figure-5: cng vehicles in bangladesh last decades(uddin et al, 2017). figure-6: vehicles conversion to cng last decades (rubel, 2017). http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 38 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 4.3 cost for using cng cng fuel price is lower than the petrol & diesel. cng vehicle cost is normally a little bit greater than the petrol engine. because it needs some extra kits for using cng (table-2). table-2: cng conversion cost cng conversion cost type\size 60 liter 90 liter 100 liter 140 liter sequential 50000 taka 52000 taka 58000 taka 65000 taka 5. lpg (liquefied petroleum gas) as vehicle fuel 5.1 composition of lpg liquified petroleum gas is a combination of commercially generated petroleum gases that are deposited under high pressure to maintain in a liquid state. lpg has a raised start temperature of roughly 755 k compared to 533 k and 589 k separately for gasoline and diesel. lpg is about inviting in discussing the levels of 2 to 10 percent (gazco, 2021). gasoline is naturally neighborly at a concentration of 1.5% (demirbas, 2002). care must be practiced when refueling with lpg to avoid freeze burns due to the cold temperature of lpg when it shifts from liquid to gas. 5.2 conversion to lpg vehicles in bangladesh concurring to the insights of the bangladesh street transport specialist (brta), there are a few 10,000 lpg-run vehicles on the country’s streets. each month, around 90–100 modern vehicles are being changed over to run on lpg (momin et al, 2016). figure-6 represents the results. figure-6: no of vehicle converted into lpg (toma group) http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 39 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org 5.3 cost for lpg lpg fuel price is lower than petrol and diesel but little higher than cng. it is about 48 taka per liter. lpg fuel base vehicles are relatively costly than diesel and petrol base vehicle. because, it’s needed some extra parts to burn lpg. on the other hand, to convert the current diesel and petrol base vehicle to lpg fuel base vehicle need some kits which price vary with the volume of the cylinder (indian oil, 2021). price of conversion of different size cylinder presented in table3. table-3: lpg conversion cost list lpg conversion cost type\size 60 liter 90 liter 100 liter 140 liter sequential 54500 taka 58500 taka 63500 taka 73500 taka 6. comparison between cng, lpg, petrol and diesel table-4 & table-5 provided a general comparison among different types of vehicle fuel (kollamtodi et al, 2008; lane, 2021; norris et al, 2009; semantic scolar, 2021; pikalu et al, 2008). table-4: fuel comparison between cng, lpg, petrol, and diesel (with the prospective of bd) fuel cng lpg petrol diesel availability available in 36 cities available in 14 cities almost all cities almost all cities infrastructure pipeline network fuel station fuel station fuel station storage pressure 3000 psi 70-80 psi normal-pressure normal-pressure fuel type compressed gas liquid when stored under pressure liquid liquid octane rating 120 112 8090 4055 calorific value 52.5 mjoule/kg 50.02 mjoule/kg 4446 mjoule/kg 4246 mjoule/kg http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 40 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org table-5: comparison between cng & lpg, petrol, diesel feature cng lpg petrol diesel components the primary component is methane propane and butane are primary components higher hydrocarbon higher hydrocarbon source natural gas and condensate wells wet gas or petroleum crude oil crude oil environmental effects lesser ghg releases releases co2 which is ghg but is cleaner release more co2 than cng and lpg release more co2 than other vehicles properties it is lighter than air and hence disperses quickly it is heavier than air and hence disperse slowly it is heavier than air and hence disperse slowly it is heavier than air and hence disperse slowly space cng need more space than others lpg needs less space than cng but more space than petrol and diesel storage no extra space requires no extra space requires power loss power loss is more than lpg vehicles power loss is less than cng vehicles less than others less than cng and lpg but higher than petrol modification cost (taka) 50000-65000 54500-73500 n/a n/a vehicle weight heavier than other fuel-based vehicles lighter than cng vehicles but heavier than petrol and diesel vehicles lighter than cng and lpg lighter than cng and lpg mileage (km/kg) 36.8 26.5 33.16 28.09 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 41 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org use cng is used all types of vehicles lpg is used mainly micro and private cars all types of vehicles all types of vehicles fuel price 4245 taka/m3 48 taka/liter 60 taka/liter 83 taka/liter safety easily disperse, hence has risk of cng storage tank explosion and fire since lpg is difficult to disperse so lesser risk of lpg storage tank explosion and fire than cng fuel tank explosion is low fuel tank explosion is low pressure cng pressure is around 3000 psi lpg pressure is 70-80 psi normal pressure normal pressure 7. conclusion throughout the above study, it can be concluded as: • natural gas demand in bangladesh is growing day by day. but the ability of supply will be reduced with time due to shortage of reserves. • in "scenario a", the gas demand inclining gradually in case of each sector and franchise. although it is considered that the decrease of growth rate in 4.3% for this instance but the economy is expanding over the country and that’s why demand is enhancing. • in "scenario b", high growth rate is considered. it means economy is expanding largely. so remarkable development needs to occur in every sector. so, the gas demand will become larger than "scenario a". • in case of "scenario c", it has been focused on climate change. so, here it has been tried to depend on clean energy or green energy. that’s why, natural gas demand not follow the "scenario b" trend. • the production forecasting also analyzed in three cases. "case a" described the production trending to decline over the year. here, only taken existing field by http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 42 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org considering no single gas reserve will be discovered. afterthought, “case b”, forecasting described a better production rate because here it is considered as to add 6 tcf. and last one, "case c" prediction almost covered the demand. because in "case c" it has been assumed a huge amount of natural gas reserve will be found in both offshore and onshore. • cng base vehicle increasing day by day, but the fuel is decreasing day by day, because of the shortage of natural gas in the near future. • on the other hand, lpg vehicle conversion rate is increasing day by day, because people now are interested in converting their vehicle into lpg for the gas crisis in bangladesh • though the conversion cost of lpg is higher than cng conversion, lpg is the best option as vehicle fuel in this present situation. acronyms bd=bangladesh brta= bangladesh road transport authority cng= compressed natural gas gdp=gross domestic products govt.= government lpg= liquified petroleum gas mmcf= million cubic feet mmcf/d= million cubic feet per day petrobangla= bangladesh oil, gas & mineral corporation psmp=power system master plan ytf= yet-to-find 3p= proven, probable and possible http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 43 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org references bd news (2021). gas cylinders not tested in 250,000 cng-run vehicles. (2021). retrieved 30 april 2021, from https://bdnews24.com/bangladesh/2018/10/17/gas-cylinders-not-testedin-250000-cng-run-vehicles bronson, j. (2021). a natural gas history cng complete. retrieved 30 april 2021, from http://www.gastocngutah.com/natural-gas-history-vehicles/ demirbas, a. (2002). fuel properties of hydrogen, liquefied petroleum gas (lpg), and compressed natural gas (cng) for transportation, energy sources, 24:7, 601-610, doi: 10.1080/00908312.2002.11877434. energy & power magazine. (2021). retrieved 30 april 2021, from https://epbd.com/view/details/article/mziwna==/title?q=sustainability+of+lpg+industry+in+bangl adesh gazco. (2021). history of lpg the first 100 years | gazeo.com. retrieved 30 april 2021, from https://gazeo.com/up-to-date/news/2013/history-of-lpg-the-first-100years,news,6662.html gov bangladesh (2019). energy scenario bangladesh 2017-18 [ebook]. energy and mineral resources division ministry of power, energy and mineral resources, bangladesh government. retrieved from https://emrd.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/emrd.portal.gov.bd/publications/30e449 4d_95a8_4e70_bb1f_98cbe5816d48/25102018%20energy%20scenario%20201718_final.pdf imam, b., 2013, energy resources of bangladesh, second ed ition, university grants commission of bangladesh. indian oil. (2021). auto gas | auto gas price india | auto lpg gas: indianoil. retrieved 30 april 2021, from https://iocl.com/products/autogas.aspx kollamthodi, s. et al. (2008). transport technologies marginal abatement cost curve model technology and efficiency measures, aea technology, etsap semi-annual workshop, iea – paris, 3-4/07/2008. lane, b. (2021). fuel efficient cars uk guide to petrol and diesel cars 2021. retrieved 30 april 2021, from http://www.whatgreencar.com/cng.php momin, msa., dutta,m., kader,m.g., iftakher, sm. (2016). study of lpg (liquefied petroleum gas) and cng (compressed natural gas) vehicles and it’s future aspects, international conference on mechanical, industrial and energy engineering,26-27 december, 2016, khulna, bangladesh. norris, j. et al. (2009). light goods vehicle co2 emissions study: task report for task 5 assessment of the potential for co2 emissions reductions, report to the department for transport, aea, harwell, didcot. petrobangla (bangladesh oil, gas & mineral corporation). (2021). retrieved 30 april 2021, from http://www.petrobangla.org.bd/site/view/annual_reports/ http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 44 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org petrobangla. (2018). gas sector master plan bangladesh 2017, petrobangla, powercell, 28 february 2018 petrobangla (2017). petrobangla annual report, 2017 pikula, b., mešić, e. & hodžić, m. (2008). determination of air drag coefficient of vehicle models, international congress motor vehicles & motors, kragujevac, october 8th-10th, 2008. rezwanul (2021). cng losing its potential as fuel alternative in bangladesh. retrieved 30 april 2021, from http://rezwanul.blogspot.com/2010/10/cng-losing-its-potential-as-fuel.html rubel, r.i. (2017). natural gas driven vehicles safety and regulatory regime –challenges in bangladesh, journal of materials and engineering structures, 4, 113–120. semantic scholar. (2021). lpg engine efficiency; https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/055d/88887123275e802183a568845b7e0e8acc91.pdf uddin, s., khan, r., & sakib, m. (2017). retrieved 30 april 2021, from http://icmimeruet.ac.bd/2017/dir/contents/technical%20papers/energy%20technology/et-33.pdf wadud, z., & khan, t. (2011). cng conversion of motor vehicles in dhaka: valuation of the co-benefits. retrieved 30 april 2021, from https://www.academia.edu/5402318/cng_conversion_of_motor_vehicles_in_dhaka_v aluation_of_the_co_benefits http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology effect of textile dyeing wastewater on growth, yield and nutritional qualities of indian spinach shahjalal khandaker1, jahidul hassan2, ganesh chandara saha3, mohammad zia uddin kamal4, anamul hoque bhuiyan1 abstract the present study was conducted on indian spinach irrigated by groundwater (control) and seven different types of textile dyeing wastewater to assess the suitability for further utilization in vegetables cultivation. the impact of dyeing wastewater was assessed regarding the growth, yield and nutritional qualities of indian spinach. the different types of dyeing wastewater were analyzed for a wide range of parameters and compared with irrigation water quality standard. the results revealed that ph, biochemical oxygen demand, dissolved oxygen, chloride and color of the mixed wastewater sample (d8) were exceeded the irrigation water quality standards of department of environment, bangladesh while these properties of other wastewater samples were almost within allowable limits. the mixed wastewater was not suitable for irrigation considering the intensity of pollution and yield of indian spinach. the average yield of indian spinach irrigated with five less polluted wastewater (2 nd wash after scouring and bleaching, enzyme treated wastewater, 2nd wash after dyeing, neutralized wastewater and fixing wastewater) was 58.54 g which was about 28 percent lower than the groundwater irrigated indian spinach. however, number of leaves, plant canopy area, stem diameter and plant height did not varied significantly with groundwater treated plant. nutritional qualities of indian spinach irrigated with wastewater were similar to those irrigated by groundwater. the concentration of ascorbic acid in indian spinach irrigated with wastewater was found almost identical with groundwater irrigated plants. chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b of different wastewater treated plants varied from 0.17 to 0.29 mg and 0.05 to 0.08 mg per gm among the treatments respectively while groundwater irrigated indian spinach contained in these range. β carotene in wastewater irrigated indian spinach was also higher than the groundwater irrigated plant. from overall assessment, selected wastewater of a dyeing factory could be directly reutilized in irrigation purpose of vegetables cultivation. key words: wastewater, irrigation, yield and growth, nutritional qualities. 1 department of textile engineering, dhaka university of engineering &technology, gazipur, bangladesh. email:sk_tex2005@yahoo.com 2 department of horticulture, bangabandu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur, bangladesh. 3 department of civil engineering, dhaka university of engineering &technology, gazipur, bangladesh. 4 department of soil science, bangabandu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur, bangladesh. 70ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction bangladesh is an agricultural country where industrialization is taking place in a gradually increasing phase. water pollution by industrial effluent is one of the vital issues of the environmental concern in bangladesh (jolly and islam, 2009). the important industries are textiles, leather tanning, fertilizer, sugar, chemical, pharmaceutical, oil refining etc. among these industries, the textile dyeing is considered to be one of the world’s worst polluters because it uses huge amounts of both chemicals and water which after processing becomes wastewater (khan et al., 2011). to dye 1 kg of cotton goods with reactive dyes, it requires an average of 70-150 l water, 0.6 kg nacl, 40 gms reactive dyes, alkalis (naoh) and other pretreatment and dyeing auxiliaries (allegre et al., 2006). due to continuous disposal of wastewater into river bodies, the surface water quality is being polluted gradually in an around the industrial zone because of the mixing of various chemical pollutants of the effluent with water. on the other hand, the continuous withdrawal of groundwater is responsible for the depletion of underground water resource and this continuous lowering of the underground water level is threatening our agriculture and environment. it has been reported that the groundwater level of the country is going down gradually due to its large scale yearly extraction for crops production (jolly and islam, 2009). the use of industrial wastewater for irrigation purpose can reduce the water pollution and dependency on agricultural use of groundwater. however, it is not possible to circumvent the industrialization for the contributions of textile sector in the economy of bangladesh. under this situation, it has become urgent to think of an alternative way to reutilize the industrial wastewater as irrigation aspect for crops production. ultimately that would be helpful to reduce the environmental pollution of wastewater as well as effluent treatment cost. the use of industrial or municipal wastewater in agriculture is a common practice in many parts of the world (sharma et al., 2007; who, 2006). rough estimates indicate that at least 20 million hectares in 50 countries are irrigated with raw or partially treated wastewater (hussain et al., 2001) as this effluent contains various micronutrients essential for plant growth. however, several studies were conducted using wastewater as irrigation for crops and vegetable production where treated wastewater can be used safely for this purpose but untreated wastewater were adversely affected both qualitatively and quantitatively. there are more than 15 steps in knit fabric dyeing process where the wastewaters of all sections are not strongly polluted. in some dyeing process, both chemicals and water are used and some other process only water is used for fabric washing and cleaning after a chemical treatment. haque (2008) stated that about 50% of wastewater are polluted and needs to be treated and the rest of the water can discharge directly or subjected to very mild treatment. so there is a scope to use such type of wastewater for crops production in bangladesh. moreover, as dyeing is a continuous process so it will not hamper to get irrigation water relentlessly. the aim of the present study was to observe the yield, 71ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology growth and nutritional qualities of indian spinach irrigated with less polluted wastewater from the dyeing process comparing with groundwater. materials and methods sample collection the less polluted wastewater samples were carried in 120 liters plastic container for irrigation of vegetables from dyeing process (d2, d3, d4, d5, d6 and d7) of a knit fabric dyeing factory in bangladesh (fig. 1). mixed effluent sample (d8) was taken from equalization tank of etp (effluent treatment plant) and groundwater sample (d1) was collected as control treatment from a tube-well near experimental site. for wastewater characterization, samples were taken in two liters plastic bottles with good stoppers from the plastic container. bottles were thoroughly washed with 1 (m) hcl and rinsed several times with de-ionized water before sample collection. sampling was carried out using the grab method except mixed effluent (stone et al., 2000). fabric loading water +chemicals scouring & bleaching drain by rinse water +acid hot wash drain by rinse water cold wash drain d2 (2 nd wash after scouring and bleaching) acid +enzyme enzyme process drain d3 (enzyme treated wastewater) water cold wash drain chemicals + color dyeing drain by rinse water hot wash drain by rinse water cold wash drain d4 (2nd wash after dyeing) acid +water neutralization drain d5 (neutralized wastewater) water+ chemical soaping drain by rinse water hot wash drain by rinse water cold wash drain d6(2nd wash after soaping) water + chemical fixing drain d7 (fixing wastewater ) 72ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology water + chemical softening drain unload figure 1: typical dyeing process and sample collection steps laboratory analysis of wastewater the ph, electrical conductivity and temperature were measured on the spot before acidified according to the standard procedures (apha, 1998). colour, nitrate (no3¯ ), sulphate (so4 -2), phosphate (po4 -) were carried out in the laboratory using dr-2800™ spectrophotometer. electrical conductivity (ec) was determined by conductivity meter (ec150, hach). biochemical oxygen demand (bod5) was measured by dilution method (apha, 1998). dissolved oxygen (do) was measured by chemical method and chemical oxygen demand (cod) was determined by dichromate digestion method. chloride was determined by mohr’s method. total solids (ss) was measured gravimetrically while suspended solids (ss) was obtained by subtracting the tds from ts. the determinations of heavy metals (nickel, zinc, copper and chromium) were carried out using atomic absorption spectrophotometer (spectra a.a-55b, varian, and australia) as per standard method. cultivation of indian spinach pot experiment was conducted at the nursery of horticulture department at bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, gazipur, bangladesh on march-may, 2012. 24 pots were arranged according to the rcbd (randomized complete block design) with three replications for eight wastewater samples including one groundwater irrigated plants. after rising of plants, thinning and wedding were done properly and each pot was irrigated with equal amount (500 ml) of wastewater from respective drum at one alternate day to keep soil moistured. harvesting was done 70 days after seed sowing because maximum yield and growth of indian spinach was obtained in this period (rashid, 1993). at least five plants were taken randomly from each replication of treatments to analysis the growth and yield of indian spinach. measurement of growth and yield total plant height and shoot length were measured by measuring tape. leaf length and leaf width were also measured in the similar way. stem diameter was measured in mm by slide calipers in the three position of a plant. plant weights were measured by using electronic balance precisely. all measurements were taken 5 randomly selected plants from each replication and average value was calculated. leaves per plant were counted from 5 plants of each replication and average was calculated. plant canopy area was measured by using the following formula. canopy area= leaf expansion at the north-south direction x leaf expansion at the westeast direction. 73ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology nutritional analysis fresh leaves were sampled manually for estimations of chlorophyll and β carotene. chlorophyll and β carotene pigments were extracted in 80% acetone and estimated according to the methods of maclachlan and zalik (1963) and duxbury and yentsch (1956), respectively. ascorbic acid was determined by the methods described by keller and schwager (1977). statistical analysis the data was analyzed using mstatc statistical software. analysis of variance (anova) was done according to gomez and gomez (1984). the means were compared by duncan’s multiple range test (dmrt) at 5% significance level. results and discussions physiochemical properties of wastewater and groundwater physicochemical properties of different textile dyeing wastewater and groundwater were compared with irrigation water quality standard suggested by doe (department of environment). the analytical results are shown in table 1. the highest amount of colour, tds, electrical conductivity, sulphate, chloride were detected in mixed effluent (d8) and 2nd wash after bath drop. chloride, electrical conductivity of these two samples were exceeded the recommended value of department of environment (doe), bangladesh. table 1: physicochemical properties of textile dying wastewater p aram eters irrigation std of d o e treatments d 1 d 2 d 3 d 4 d 5 d 6 d 7 d 8 t ube w ell 2 nd w ash after scouring& bleaching e nzym e t reatm ent 2 nd w ash after b d n eutralization t reatm ent 2 nd w ash after soaping fixing t reatm ent m ixed e ffluent from e t p ph 6-9 7.2 9.1 6.1 8.2 7.1 7.4 7.3 9.5 do ( mgl-1) 4.5-8 6.5 5.85 6.12 4.58 5.0 5.8 4.77 0.58 color (pt.counit) na 16 97 67 477 367 171 348 1038 tds ( mgl-1) 2100 300 910 650 2070 1840 470 1290 3320 tss ( mgl-1) 200 30 40 50 60 66 40 40 310 ec (µs cm-1) 1200 350 850 900 1350 550 480 700 4200 bod ( mgl-1) 100 1.5 68 28 23 83 143 203 223 74ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology cod ( mgl-1) 400 4 755 610 98 195 317 393 450 nitrate(no3 –) ( mgl-1) 10 1.5 0.8 0 0.6 0 0.3 0.8 0.8 phosphate(po4 -) ( mgl-1) na 0.5 2 0.52 0.81 0.23 0.27 0.19 1.06 0.40 sulphate(so4 -2) ( mgl-1) na 0 9.0 2.5 38.0 0 5.0 8.0 65 chloride(cl-) ( mgl-1) 600 31 8 5 2500 58 64 42 2700 note: n a not available the wastewater discharge from 2nd wash after scouring and bleaching (d2) and mixed effluent (d8) were strongly alkaline. dissolved oxygen was the lowest in d8 which indicates the severity of pollution. very little amount of nitrate and phosphate were found in different wastewater samples. growth and yield characteristics of indian spinach number of leaves per plant there was no significant variation found for the total number of leaves per plant among the wastewater and groundwater treated indian spinach. the number of leaves in groundwater irrigated plant was 19.11 while in other wastewater treated plants varied from 14.11 to 16.50 statistically (table 2). leaf length the highest leaf length of indian spinach was found in d1 (17.83 cm) treated plant while leaf length of different wastewater treated plants ranged from 12.0 to 13.28 cm and statistically similar. islam et al., (2011) studied that the maximum leaf length was 17.0 cm and minimum leaf length was 10.4 cm in indian spinach grown in wastewater irrigated soil which is identical with the present study. leaf width leaf width of indian spinach was found the highest in groundwater treated plant (10.78 cm). however; leaf width of different wastewater irrigated plant was within the same group ranged from 6.78 to 8.39 cm and has no statistical variation each among. plant canopy area there was no significant variation observed in plant canopy area of different wastewater irrigated plants with groundwater irrigated plant. the highest plant canopy area was seen in d3 (745.00 cm2) while the lowest value was found in d8 (581.30 cm2) (table2). higher plant canopy area enhances the exchange of gases and photosynthesis process. iersel and lee (2008) found that leaves area of plants decreased with the increasing of salinity of soil for irrigation. salinity not only decreases the area of individual leaves, but also the total leaf area of plants (brugnoli and lauteri, 1991; romero-ara-nda 75ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology et al., 2001). the concentration of chloride (cl-) in d8 and d4 was the highest. therefore, the canopy area of those treatments were seems to lower. stem diameter no significant variation was found in stem diameter among the wastewater and groundwater treated plants. the highest stem diameter was found in d1 (10.47 mm) closely followed by d3 (10.35 mm) and d5 (10. 17 mm). the lowest stem diameter was measured in d8 (8.597 mm). plant height statistically there was no significant difference observed in the plant height of indian spinach. the maximum plant height was recorded from d1 (60.34 cm) while it was the minimum in d6 (35.76 cm).the height of other treatments (d2, d3, d4, d5, d7 and d8) were varied from 38.23 to 51.51 cm (table 2). as d2, d4, d7 and d8 wastewater contained higher amount of nitrate (no3 -) therefore, it seems that the plant height was also higher than the other wastewater treated plants. rop et al., (2012) stated that the height of a plant depends on plant vigor and growth habit. indian spinach is a vigorous growing plant and nitrogen had a significant effect on the length of stem. nitrogen is essential for plant cell division especially during early vegetative growth in plant (salisbury and ross, 1986). this implies that timing and application of nitrogen levels is crucial in production of leafy vegetables. table 2: growth and yield of indian spinach irrigated by textile dyeing wastewater treatments number of leaves per plant* leaf length (cm) leaf width (cm) plant canopy area (cm2)* stem diameter (mm)* plant height (cm) plant weight (g) (yield) d1 19.11a 17.83a 10.78a 654.00a 10.47a 60.34a 81.33a d2 16.50a 13.28ab 8.39ab 740.00a 9.28a 45.28a 60.67ab d3 15.55a 12.83b 7.22b 745.00a 10.35a 42.26a 58.00ab d4 14.67a 12.00b 7.97b 602.00a 9.80a 40.38a 49.00ab d5 15.44a 13.22ab 7.44b 631.30a 10.17a 38.23a 57.33ab d6 14.11a 12.22b 6.78b 617.30a 9.16a 35.76a 45.33b d7 15.56a 12.78b 7.22b 619.00a 9.13a 51.51a 67.67ab d8 14.89a 12.56b 7.11b 581.30 a 8.60a 45.07a 45.33b cv% 21.48 19.57 19.44 27.36 20.54 39.85 31.65 lsd value 5.92 4.57 2.67 312.00 3.46 31.30 31.98 * in the same column followed by common letters are not significantly different from each other at 5% level of probability by dmrt. 76ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology plant weight (yield) the yield (fresh weight) of groundwater irrigated indian spinach was 81.33 g while the yield varied from 45.33 to 67.67 g in different wastewater irrigated plants. according to the mstat-c software analysis, the yield of d2, d3, d4, d5 and d7 were within the same group and the average yield was 58.54 g. the yield of d6 and d8 were significantly varied with groundwater (d1) irrigated plat. solaimalai and saravanakumar (2004) stated that excess tds within the plant root zone has a deleterious effect on plant growth primarily because; it increases the energy that must be expended to acquire water from the soil of the root zone and to make biochemical adjustments necessary to survive under stress. in this study, mixed wastewater (d8) contained the huge amount of tds (3320 mg l-1) which may be hampered the yield of d8 wastewater treated plant. nutritional qualities of indian spinach ascorbic acid there was no significant variation observed in ascorbic acid (vitamin c) of indian spinach among the treatments irrigated with wastewater comparing with groundwater. ascorbic acid was varied from 4.25 to 5.13 mg in indian spinach per 100 g while groundwater irrigated plants contained 5.13 mg (figure 2 a). (a) ascorbic acid (b) β carotene figure 2: (a) ascorbic acid and (b) β carotene in indian spinach β carotene 77ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the highest amount of ß carotene in indian spinach was found in d5 followed by d3 and d2 with the amount of 0.54, 0.43 and 0.30 mg per 100 g respectively (figure 2 b). these amounts of ß carotene were much higher than the groundwater irrigated plant. chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b the amount of chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b of different wastewater treated plants were very close with the amount of groundwater (d1) treated indian spinach. chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b was varied from 0.17 to 0.29 mg and 0.05 to 0.08 mg per gm among the treatments respectively while groundwater irrigated indian spinach contained in these range (figure 3). figure 3: chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b indian spinach conclusion the physicochemical properties of studied dyeing wastewater were not uniform and mixed wastewater were strongly polluted considering ph, do, tds, tss, bod and cod according to the water quality standard of doe (department of environment) for using in irrigation. therefore, the mixed wastewater was not suitable for irrigation considering the intensity of pollution. the average yield of indian spinach irrigated with five less polluted wastewater (d2, d3, d4, d5 and d7) was 58.54 g and this amount was about 28 percent lower than the groundwater irrigated indian spinach. however, number of leaves, plant canopy area, stem diameter and plant height did not varied significantly with groundwater treated plant. moreover, nutritional qualities of this vegetable were not affected for irrigation with these less polluted dyeing wastewater. there was no significant variation was observed in the concentration of ascorbic acid, ß carotene chlorophyll a and chlorophyll b of indian spinach cultivated with dyeing wastewater irrigation comparing with groundwater. from the overall aspects of the study, selected these five less polluted dyeing wastewater (without treated) can be considered as suitable alternate for irrigation of vegetables where groundwater is not available on 78ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the condition of monitoring the long-term effect on soils which can reduce the effluent treatment cost, groundwater dependency for irrigation, ultimately save the environment. acknowledgements authors are grateful to the higher education and qualities enhancement project (heqep) of university grant commission of bangladesh for financial grant and tex euro bd ltd. for giving permission to collect wastewater samples for the present investigation. the authors also thankful to the dhaka university of engineering &technology (duet), gazipur, and bangabandu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university (bsmau), gazipur for providing lab facilities. references allègre, c., moulin, p., maisseu, m., charbit, f. (2006). treatment and reuse of reactive dyeing effluents, journal of membrane science, 269: 15-34. apha, awwa and wef (1998). standard method for the examination of water and wastewater, 20 th edition; american public health association (apha)/ american water works association (awwa)/ water environment federation (wef). washington, usa. brugnoli, e. & lauteri, m. (1991). effects of salinity on stomatal conductance, photosynthetic capacity, and carbon isotope discrimination of salt-tolerant (gossypium hirsutum l.) and salt –sensitive (phaseolus vulgaris l.) c3 non –halophytes. plant physiology. 95: 628-635. duxbury, a. c. & yentsch, c.s. (1956). plankton pigment monographs. j. mar. res., 91-101. gomez, k.a. & gomez, a.a. (1984). statistical procedures for agricultural research. jhon wiley and sons publication, new york. p p. 91-97. haque, m. (2008). treatment of wastewater in bangladesh. cotton bangladesh. retrieve at: http://www.cottonbangladesh.com/april2008/wastewater.htm hussain, i., raschid, l., hanjra, m. a., marikar, f., & vander hoek, w. (2001). a framework for analyzing socioeconomic, health and environmental impacts of wastewater use in agriculture in developing countries. working paper 26. colombo: international water management institute (iwmi). islam, m.m., karim, a.j.m.s., jahiruddin, m., majid, m., miah, m.g., mustaque ahmedand, m., and hakim, m.a. (2011). effects of organic manure and chemical fertilizers on crops in the radish-stem amaranth-indian spinach cropping pattern in homestead area. asian journal of crops science. 5(11), 1370-1378. jolly, y. n. & islam, a. (2009). characterization of dye industry effluent and assessment of its suitability for irrigation purpose. journal of bangladesh academy of science, vol.33: 99-106. khan, g. m., deniel konjit, m., thomas, a., eyasu, s. s. & awoke, g. (2011). impact of textile wastewater on seed germination and some physiological parameters in pea (pisum sativum l.), lentil (lens esculentum l.) and gram (gram arienum l.). asian journal of plant sciences, 10(4): 269-273. 79ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology keller, t. & schwager, h. (1977). air pollution and ascorbic acid. journal of plant pathology.12:338350. iersel, v. m. w & lee kate, m. (2008). sodium chloride effects on growth, morphology, and physiology of chrysanthemum (chrysanthemum x moratorium). hort. science 43(6): 18881891. maclachlan, s. & zalik, s, (1963). plastid structure, chlorophyll concentration, and free amino acid composition of a chlorophyll mutant on barley. journal of botany, 41: 1053-1056. rashid, m. m, (1993). “shabjee biggan” (in bengali). bangla academy, dhaka, bangladesh. p. 489. romero-aranda, r., soria, t. & cuartero, j. (2001). somato plant-water uptake and plant water relationships under saline growth conditions. plant science, 160:265-272. rop, n.k., mutui, t.m. and kiprop, e.k. (2012). influence of nitrogen fertilizer on the growth, yield and quality of indian spinach (basella alba l) afr. j. hort. sci 6,111117. salisbury, f.b. and ross, c.w. (1986). plant physiology. wadworth, california. pp. 319-329. sharma, r. k., agrawal, m. & marshall, f. m. (2007). heavy metals contamination of soil and vegetables in suburban areas of varanasi, india. eco-toxicology and environmental safety. 66:258-266. solaimalai, a. and saravanakumar, r., (2004). assessment of irrigation water qualities, in water pollution assessment and management, daya publishing house, new delhi, 389-395. stone, k. c., hunt, p. g., novak, j. m., johnson, m. h. & watts, d. w. (2000). flow-proportional, time-composted and grab sample estimation of nitrogen export from an eastern coastal plain watershed. vol. 43(2): 281-290. world health organization (who) (2006). guidelines for the safe use of wastewater, excreta and grey water: wastewater use in agriculture (volume ii). retrieved from persistent url: http://www.who.int/water_ sanitation_health/. 80ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 microsoft word 77-full article with author-185-1-4-20210825-edited american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: science and engineering agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agroforestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science iot, ai, 4th ir, computer science, ict food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 102 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org evaluation of morphological characters and yield variability of some elite cassava (manihot esculenta crantz) in uyo, southeastern nigeria doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5449188 udounang, p.i. 1*, ekwere, o.j.1 , ofonime r.a. 1 abstract field experiment was carried out at okigwe to evaluate some morphological traits and yield variablility of some elite cassava varieties with aim of making innovative recommendation to farmers. the experiment laid out in a complete block design, replicated three times. the treatments were six cassava varieties; tms 30572, tme 419, tms 98/0505, tms 98/0581, tms 01/1412 and local variety known as obubit okpo. data collected from growth and yield were subjected to analysis of variances. significant means were compares using least significant difference (lsd) at 5% probability level. among the cassava varieties; tms 98/0581 had superiority over in four characters namely; leaf area, storage root length, storage root circumference and yield. also tms 01/1412 was superior in terms of number of leaves per plant and number of storage roots per plant while tme 419 was superior in terms of plant height. since tms 98/0581 had four major characters, it could be disseminated to farmers in uyo, akwa ibom state, while the other varieties tms 01/1412, and tme 419 which were superior in two and one characters respectively could be incorporated into breeding programme with tms 98/0581 to produce hybrid varieties with higher yield for the study area. keywords: cassava, characters, breeding and yield. 1 department of crop science, faculty of agriculture, akwa ibom state university obio akpa campus, akwa ibom state nigeria. *corresponding authors address: email; patunang@yahoo.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 103 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction cassava (manihot esculenta) is a very important root crop in the tropical and sub-tropical regions of the globe. it has been cultivated for several centuries, yet the yield is low. it is a key component of the diet of over 800 million people across several continents (el-sharkawy, 2012). about 70 million people drive more than 500 kcal per day from consuming cassava storage roots (burns et al., 2011). in nigeria, cassava is processed into different local diets such as garri, fufu or apu, abacha, akpu mmiri, adibo, etc (ikeh 2017). ikeh (2017) noted that cassava is a major dominant component crops in crop mixtures especially in southeastern nigeria. due to high demand of cassava product in local market, couple with its low yield, different cassava breeding programms has tend to proffer a solution on how to triple its yield. plant breeding has the highest rate of return among the investment in agricultural research of which cassava has also benefited (ceballos et al; 2012; utomi, 2015). bassey and harry (2013) revealed that high and stable production of fresh storage roots is the key breeding objective in most cassava breeding projects. ikeh (2017) indicated that productivity plays a major role in industrial uses of cassava, whether for starch, animal feed or bio-ethanol, whereas stability of production is fundamental in the regions where cassava is the main subsistence crop. conventional breeding of cassava involves selection of out-performed parental genotypes for the characters or traits of interest, hybridizing them and conducting multi-stage offspring selections (jennings and iglesias, 2002; ceballos et al; 2012; bassey and harry, 2013). this is often aimed at the accumulation of beneficial alleles and elimination of detrimental ones. high frequency genes of specific desirable characteristics, including yield components, yield stability, storage root quality and quantity, resistance to pests and diseases, to clearance to soil and climatic factors stresses, and good processing qualities are progressively accumulated through recurrent selection of cassava bred. variability among cassava genotypes is a means of selecting for desirable traits which had led to significant progress in cassava improvement programme (akinwale et al 2010; ikeh 2017). variation among varieties of cassava is not only genotypic in nature but influenced by the environment (aina, 2007). the overall variability in cassava could be partitioned into heritable and non-heritable components with the use of suitable genetic parameters, such as coefficient of variation, heritability estimates, genetic advance and phenotypic variance for traits. (bassey and harry,2015; utomi, 2015). cassava varieties could be distinguished from one another by morphological characteristics such as leaf size, colour and shape of leaves, branching habits, plant height, colour of the stem, leaf area, storage root shape and colour etc. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 104 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org evaluation and morphological characterization of cassava varieties can by classify into morpho-types based on important agronomic traits. characterization determines the expression of characters ranging determines the expression of characters ranging from morphological or agronomic features to seed protein or molecular marker (engels and vassal, 2003). characterization is essential to provide information on the traits accessions, assuring the maximum utilization of the plants. according to ezebiro et al (2013) cassava characterization can be carried out at any stage of the plants growth as long as there is sufficient number of materials to sample. several attempts through field research have made in producing improved cassava varieties at different locations in nigeria but due to various in both biotic and abiotic factors at different parts of the country sometimes the best performing cassava varieties in one region are not among the best in some other region. therefore evaluation of cassava genotypes under this condition would help to identify those varieties that are adaptable to okigwe local conditions for use by farmers and also s elect promising ones for production of hybrid varieties for the area. materials and methdos the study was conducted at the national cereals research institute (ncri), uyo outstation, akwa ibom state, during the early and late planting season of 2017 between the months of march and december. the experimental site is situated between latitude 04o58' n and longitude 07o56'e and about 67 m above sea level. the area which lies within the humid tropical rainforest zone of southeastern nigeria has average annual rainfall of about 2500 mm and mean monthly sunshine of about 3.14 hours. the mean annual temperature range is 26°c28°c. uyo has an annual mean relative humidity of 79% and evaporation rate of 2.6 cm2. the rainfall pattern of uyo is bimodal. rain usually starts in midmarch and ends in mid-november, with a short period of relative moisture stress in august traditionally referred to as “august break” (peters et al., 1989). temperatures are generally highest in the months of february through april (peters et al., 1989).the soil has been described as a typical acid soil. the experiment site was manually prepared into ridges of 1m apart. the ridges were marked 5m long and separated by 1m paths. composite soil samples were collected at two soil depths (0-15cm and 15-30cm) using soil auger before planting. the soil samples were carefully put in polyethylene bags and labeled before being taken to the laboratory for analysis. at the laboratory, the soil samples were air dried, crushed and sieved through a 2.0mm mesh, and american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 105 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org labeled and stored for phyisco-chemical analysis. soil ph was determined in water 1:2 (soil water ratio) using ph meter with glass electrode (bates, 1954). total nitrogen in the soil was determined by microkjeldahl digestion and distillation method (ibia and udo, 2009). organic matter was determined by the dichromate wet oxidation method of walkley and black (1934). available p was determine by bray-i method of bray and kurtz (1945). exchangeable bases were extracted with neutral ammonium acetate solution. calcium (ca) and magnesium (mg) was determined in the extracts of edta titration of jackson (1962), while potassium (k) and soium (na) were determined by the use of flame photometer. exchangeable acidity was extracted with 1mol of kcl solution, while exchangeable acidity was determined by titration with naoh as described by kamprath (1975). the exchangeable hydrogen was obtained by subtracting exchangeable aluminum from the exchangeable acidity. effective cation exchange capacity (ecec) was obtained by the summation of exchangeable cations and exchangeable acidity (ibia and udoh, 2009). the experimental design used was a randomized complete block design (rcbd) with three replications. six cassava varieties used as treatments were; tms 98/0505, tns 98/0581, tme 419, tms 01/1412, tms 30572, with one local cultivar ohu pam as check. the treatments (varieties) were randomly assigned to plots to eliminate bias. the six cassava varieties namely; tms 98/0505, tms 98/0581, tme 419, tms 01/1412, tms 30572, were obtained from the national root crops research institute (nrcri) umudike, abia state, while obubit okpo (local cultivar) was obtained from farmers field in uyo akwa ibom state. the experimental area was 36m x 23 (828m2). there were 18 plots in the experimental area, each measured 5m x 5m and demarcated from one another by 1m paths. similarly, each block was demarcated from one another by 2m. planting was done on march, 2018 and 2019 immediately after land preparation. healthy stem cutting of 25cm long were planted in an incline position of 450 on the crest of ridges, at 1m intra and inter row spacing. manual weeding was carried out at 1 and 5 months after planting with aid of a weeding hoe, followed by slashing at 8 months after planting. fertilizer (npk: 15:15:15) was applied 2 months after planting at 400kg/ha, using the ring application method. the cassava storage roots were harvested at 12 months after planting. data collection six (6) plants were randomly tagged within the next plots for data collections and the following growth and yield data were measured. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 106 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org establishment percentage was done at first months after panting. this was calculated as the number of established stands over total number of planted stands in a plot and expressed in percentage. cassava height was obtained by measuring tagged plants from the ground level to terminal point of the plants 3, 6 and 9 months after planting (map). leaf areas were determined by measuring the length of each lobe and width of all the leaf lobes of each tagged plant. the means for length of all the leaf lobes and the sum of width of all leaf lobes were multiplied and the product was further multiplied by a correction factor of 0.74 (hammer, 1980). number of leaves per plant was determined by physical counting of all functional leaves of tagged cassava plants. number of harvested tubers per plant was done by counting all the cassava tubers produced by each plant and of all the tagged plants in each plot and the means recorded for each variety. the length of storage roots harvested from sample cassava plants was measured from the proximal to distal and using a flexible measuring tape in centimeter. the circumference of storage roots determine by measuring circumference of storage were of cassava plants with the aid of flexible measuring tape in centimeter at the middle portion of the storage root. fresh storage root yield per plant was weighed with the aid of top load weighing balance in kilograms and converted the yield in tonnes per hectare. data analysis data of all growth characters and yield components were subjected to analysis of variance with aid of sensate significant means were compared using the least significant difference at 5% probability level. results and discussion the physicochemical properties of the soil obtained from the experimental site are shown in table 1. the result showed that the soil was slightly acidic with low cation exchange capacity (cec) and suffered from multi-nutrient deficiencies. the soil may be classified as sandy loam. for intensive cultivation of the soil, appropriate soil management techniques were adopted to improve the nutrient status and general soil conditions. the fertilizer (npk 15:15:15) was applied at two months after planting at the rate of 400kg/ha and all the cassava genotypes received equal treatments. the result of establishment percentage as influenced by cassava genotypes showed no significant differences (p0.05). all the cassava genotypes had higher establishment percentage and ranged between 95.00% in tms 98/0581 to 100% recorded for the following american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 107 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org varieties; tms 01/1412, tme 419 and obubit okpo in 2018/2019 cropping season and range of 99-100% in 2019/2020. subsequent differences (p0.05) were observed following plant height among the cassava varieties in all the months under investigation (table 3). tme 419 variety was the tallest plant in all the sampled months; 95.40, 176.77 and 215.98 cm in 2018/2019 while height of 101.20, 182.80 and 220.88 cm was recorded in 2019/2020 season, at 3.6 and 9 map respectively. tms 98/0581 was the shortest variety in both cropping seasons; 51.08, 83.40 and 125.31cm in 2018/2019 whereas 53.92, 91.30 and 133.71cm were recorded in 2019/2020 cropping seasons. the result showed significant differences (p0.05) among the cassava varieties for number of leaves per plant in all the months under study (table 4). tms 01/1412 had highest number of leaves per plant; 98.25, 281.16 and 325.12 in 2018/2019. the following number of leaves per plant 101.22, 306.33 and 359.48 was recorded in 2019/2020 cropping season at 3.6 and 9map, respectively. tme 419 had the least number of leaves per plant; 71.55, 139.08 and 188.41 in 2018/2019 while 68.50, 143.92 and 200.60 leaves per plant was recorded in 2019/2020 cropping season. obubit okpo which was the local variety had significant higher number of leaves compared to tme 419 and tms 98/0571. significant differences (p0.05) were observed among the cassava genotypes for leaf area (table 5). leaf area of all the cassava genotypes evaluated increased from 3 map to 6 map and started declined at 9 map to map. in all the cassava varieties evaluated, tms 98/0581 had the largest leaf area for all the months under investigations, followed by tms 01/1412 while tms 98/0505 had the least leaf area in all the months under investigation. number of cassava tubers per plants varied significantly (table 6). the result showed that tms 01/1412 produced significant highest number of storage roots per plants; 10.25 and 9.82 in 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 cropping years, followed by tms 98/0581, with 8.50 and 8.75, respectively. tms 30572 had lowest number of storage root plants 4.80 and 5.20 respectively. length of tubers per plant differed significantly (p0.05) among the cassava varieties sampled. tms 98/0581 had significant longest tubers, 45.60cm and 44.20m by tme 419 with 44.20 and 43.18cm. tms 30577 recorded the shortest storage root; 30.81 and 33.10 cm respectively. the result showed the circumference of tubers differed significantly among the cassava genotypes (p0.05). the largest tuber circumference was recorded for tms 98/0581, 21.88cm and 22.30cm followed by 20.40cm and 22.18cm recorded in tme 419 in both cropping seasons. tms 30572 had the least storage root circumference; 15.33 and 15.25cm in 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 respectively. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 108 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org fresh tuber yield of cassava genotypes differed significantly (p0.05). the genotype tms 98/0581 recorded the highest fresh storage root yield of 39.25t/ha and 41.50t/ha followed by tme 419 with 38.60t/ha and 39.01t/ha while the lowest fresh storage root yield in all the cassava varieties recorded for tms 30527 with yield of 25.15t/ha and 24.58t/ha in both years. discussion the result showed that number of leaves and leaf are of cassava genotype different significantly (p0.05), cassava varieties that produced higher number of leaves at certain stages of growth. in this study, higher number of leaves seems to correlate with increase in photosynthetic in cassava. for example, the varieties tms 98/0581, tms 01/1412, tme 419 with higher number of leaves per plant and leaf area also produced higher fresh storage root yield (t/ha), while tms 30572 98/0505 and obubit okpo with lower number of leaves per plant produced lower fresh storage root yields (t/ha). higher storage yield observed for some varieties showed that the plants had powerful source (leaves) and sink capacity roots. this observation agrees with the earlier report by iita (1990) and el-stairway (2008) that number of leaves may influence crop yield. similarly, leaf area increased as number of leaves also increased. also number of leaf and leaf area decreased considerably under adverse environmental conditions such as the appearance of dry season. this was observed at 9map which agrees with the observation of fermont (2009) that leaf area index increases as the number and size of individual leaves increased reaching a peak of 4 to 6 map. however, in this study an association could be established between leaf area and number of leaves per plants, and fresh tuber yields (t/ha) of cassava. this observation was in line with the report of bassey and harry (2013). the varieties tms 01/1412, tms 98/0581 and tms 419 with highest number of leaves and largest leaf areas also produced highest storage root yields. this result also agrees with fermont (2009); ikeh 2017 and iita (1990) that tuber yields is determined by certain growth characteristics such as number of leaves, leaf area and plant habit. table 1. soil physico-chemcial properties of the experimental site before planting soil parameter 0-15 cm soil depth. ph 5.50 electric conductivity (ds/m) 0.035 organic matter (%) 1.58 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 109 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org total nitrogen (%) 0.07 available p (mg/kg) 42.30 exchangeable bases (cmo1/kg) ca 2.12 mg 1.08 na 0.06 exchangeable 2.20 acidity (cmol/kg) ecec (cmol/kg) 5.46 particle size analysis (%) sand 86.50 clay 4.80 silt 8.70 soil textural class loamy soil table 2: sprouting percentage of cassava varieties cassava varieties 2018/2019 2019/2020 tms 98/0505 98.00 100.00 tims 98/0581 95.00 99.00 tme 419 100.00 100.00 tms 30572 96.00 100.00 tms 01/1412 100.00 100.00 ohu pam 100.00 100.00 lsd (p<0.05) ns ns * ns = not significant table 3: cassava height as influenced by varieties cassava varieties 2018/2019 months after planting 2019/2020 months after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 tms 98/0505 62.14 121.81 163.50 58.60 128.90 170.09 tims 98/0581 51.08 83.40 125.31 53.92 91.30 133.71 tme 419 95.40 176.77 215.98 101.20 182.80 220.88 tms 30572 60.19 102.50 138.80 65.11 118.16 145.12 tms 01/1412 70.33 152.61 193.25 71.06 169.44 201.82 ohu pam 64.20 148.00 176.70 65.22 156.18 183.14 lsd (p<0.05) 3.40 5.25 6.81 4.77 5.28 4.80 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 110 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 4: number of leaves per plant cassava varieties 2018/2019 months after planting 2019/2020 months after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 tms 98/0505 80.50 258.30 285.06 77.51 233.01 262.48 tims 98/0581 78.60 208.36 202.40 92.18 199.43 216.75 tme 419 71.55 129.08 188.41 68.50 143.92 200.60 tms 30572 52.13 192.30 215.22 59.20 201.40 227.73 tms 01/1412 98.25 281.16 325.12 101.22 306.33 359.48 ohu pam 65.48 182.42 205.31 70.60 188.41 250.19 lsd (p<0.05) 2.87 5.57 9.25 2.92 4.22 6.62 table 5: leaf area of cassava as influenced by varieties cassava varieties 2018/2019 months after planting 2019/2020 months after planting 3 6 9 3 6 9 tms 98/0505 120.40 130.22 125.60 125.39 137.44 135.22 tims 98/0581 185.20 198.39 191.16 192.50 201.20 201.01 tme 419 180.41 193.09 188.20 185.21 198.25 190.41 tms 30572 116.50 119.28 110.88 108.99 120.82 112.30 tms 01/1412 178.33 180.70 180.20 172.66 193.49 190.00 ohu pam 129.81 142.24 140.01 133.80 158.08 151.26 lsd (p<0.05) 4.25 5.29 3.33 2.71 5.75 5.39 table 6: yield and yield components of cassava as influenced by varieties cassava varieties 2018/2019 2019/2020 number of storage root/ plant storag e root length (cm) circumfer ence of storage root storag e root yield (t/ha) number of storage root/ plant storage root length (cm) circumfere nce of storage root storage root yield (t/ha) tms 98/0505 6.22 31.60 16.71 3250 6.01 33.11 15.80 29.60 tims 98/0581 8.50 45.60 21.88 39.25 8.76 44.20 22.30 41.50 tme 419 7.20 44.20 20.40 38.60 8.50 43.18 22.18 39.01 tms 30572 4.80 30.81 15.33 25.15 5.20 33.10 15.25 24.58 tms 01/1412 10.25 38.29 20.11 35.50 9.82 40.61 21.09 37.52 ohu pam 7.55 36.95 18.55 33.09 6.31 35.20 17.88 32.55 lsd (p<0.05) 2.58 3.18 2.88 3.48 2.16 2.27 2.40 3.91 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 111 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org conclusion based on the result findings, the following conclusions were drawn: the tms 01/1412, tms 98/0581, and tme 419 which produced the highest storage root yields above the local variety (obubit okpo) could be disseminated to local farmers in uyo. also obubit okpo which produced higher number of storage roots, be longer tubers and larger storage circumference when compares to tms 98/0505, and tms 30572 could be incorporated into breeding programmes involving the high yielding types (tms 01/1412, tms 98/0581, tme 419) to produce high yielding varieties for the area. references aina, f.a. (2007). genetic variability in cassava as influenced by root yield in nigeria. journal of biological science, 2 (5): 765-770. akinwale, m.g., akinyele b.o. odiyi, a.c. (2010). genetic variability among forty-three cassava genotypes in three agrocological zones of nigeria. journal of plant breeding and crop science., 2 (5): 104-109. bassey, e.e. and harry, g.i. (2013). screening cassava genotypes for tuber bulking, early maturity and optimum harvesting time in uyo, south eastern nigeria. peak journal of agricultural sciences, 1 (15): 83-88. bouyoucos, g.j. (1951). improved hydrometer method for particle size analysis of soil. agronomy journal, 54:64-465. bray, r.h., and kurtz, l.t. (1954). determination of total organic and available forms of phosphorous in soils. soil science journal, 34:45-49. ceballos, h., okogbenin e., perez j.c. (2010). cassava; in: j. bradshaw (ed.) root and tuber crops. springer publisher, new york. pp. 53-96. el-sharkawy, m.a. and j.h. cock, (1984). water use efficiency of cassava. i. effect of air humidity and water stress on stomatal conductance and gas exchange. crop sci. 24:503-507. engel, j.m. and visser, l. (2003). a guide to effective management of germplasm collections, ipgri, handbooks for genebanks. no. 6. ipgri, rome, italy. fermont, a.m. (2009). cassava and soil fertility in intensifying small holder farming systems in east africa. ph.d. thesis, wageningen unviersity, wageningen, n.l., p. 197. ibia, t.o. and udoh, e.j. (2009). guide to fertilizer use for crop in akwa ibom, nigeria. sibon books publisher pp. 19-21. ikeh, a. o. essien b. a., akata o.r., and akpan, e. a., (2015). dessert encroachment impacts on food production of okigwe local government area, imo state nigeria. journal of forestry, environment and sustainable development, 1:2: 58-63. ikeh, a.o. (2017) effects of time of harvesting and fertilization on yield, garrification traits and economic returns of some cassava (manihot esculenta crantz) genotypes. unpublished ph.d thesis of the department of crop science faculty of agriculture, university of uyo, uyo akwa ibom state. international institute of tropical agriculture (iita) (1990). cassava in tropical africa, cassava reference manual. iita's contribution, iita pulication, ibadan, nigeria, p. 17. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 112 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org jackson, m.l. (1962). soil chemical analysis, engle wood cliff, prentice hall inc., new jersey, p. 305. kampratt, e.j. (1970). soil acidity and liming. a review of soil research in tropical latin america, pp. 105-108. utomi, e.d. (2015). evaluation of cassava genotypes for morpological characteristic and yield in uyo southeastern nigeria. unpublished project of department of crop science, university of uyo,uyo, akwa ibom state nigeria.pp77. microsoft word 2.ali.doc american journal agricultural science and engineering technology screening of total poly phenols and vitamin e as natural antioxidants potential from iranian traditional food plants extracts ali aberoumand  1 abstract antioxidants are vital substances, which possess the ability to protect the body from damages caused by free radical-induced oxidative stress. the main objective of this study was to assess the antioxidant levels of a number of fruits and vegetables. we investigated the total phenolic contents in the plant foods used as traditional vegetables and fruits and well-known as sources of antioxidant using standard assay. total phenolic contents ranged from 0.87 to 7.02mg gallic acid/g dw in alocaccia indica and solanum indicum, respectively. results showed that portulaca contains the most value (11.6 mg/100g),leaves of this plant may be considered as a potential new source of natural αtocopherol, but vitamin e in solanum, chlorophytum and alocacia are not detected. the plant foods possess valuable antioxidant properties for culinary and possible nutritive use. key words: antioxidant compound, total phenolic content, vitamin e, plant foods. introduction phytochemicals exerting antioxidant actions are largely being recognized as of benefiting human health and disease prevention. these benefits may be a result of concerted actions of well-known antioxidants such as vitamin c, vitamin e and β -carotene. indeed, phenolic compounds are ubiquitously distributed in the plant kingdom and exhibit a wide range of medicinal properties, including anti-inflammatory, anti-carcinogenic viral, anti-allergic and immune-stimulating agents (larson, 1988). these protective effects have been mostly ascribed to their free radical scavenging, metal chelating and chain breaking effects. many literature reports show a relatively strong correlation between the total phenolic content and the antioxidant capacity of plant extracts (zheng, 2001; cai, 2004; tawaha 2007). crude extracts of fruits, herbs, vegetables, cereals, and other plant materials rich in phenolics are increasingly of interest in the food industry because they retard oxidative degradation of lipids and thereby improve the quality and nutritional value of food. antioxidants are compounds that can delay or inhibit the oxidation of lipids or other molecules by inhibiting the initiation or propagation of oxidative chain reactions (souri, 2008). the antioxidative effect is mainly due to phenolic components, such as flavonoids (al-farsi, 2007), phenolic acids, and phenolic diterpenes. typical phenolics that possess antioxidant activity have been characterized as phenolic acids and flavonoids. phenolic acids have repeatedly been implicated as natural antioxidants in fruits, vegetables, and other plants. rosmarinic acid, an important phytochemical, has been found to be a potent active substance against human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (hiv-1) (byers (1995).  corresponding author’s e-mail: draberoumand@yahoo.com 1 natural resources college, behbahan khtamolanbia technology university , behbahan, iran. american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 12-19 13 among the fat-soluble vitamins, vitamin e is probably the most familiar and at the same time the most likely to be misused. vitamin e was recognized in 1922 by evans and bishop as a dietary factor from plants that was essential for normal reproduction in rats. it was not until 1933 that it was identified as a group of substances known as tocopherols and tocotrienols and established as a dietary essential for humans. vitamin e is a mixture of at least eight naturally occurring tocopherols and tocotrienols, each of which makes a different contribution to the vitamin e content in a food. it is generally agreed that the main function of vitamin e is as an antioxidant, or substance that prevents oxidation of other nutrients in food and body. vitamin e also plays an important role in protecting vitamin a, vitamin c, and unsaturated fatty acids in the food against undesirable changes as the result of oxidation. the study of the role of vitamin e as an antioxidant is complicated by the fact that other substances, such as the mineral selenium, also function as biological antioxidants and perform some but not all of the roles of vitamin e. fruits and vegetables provide about 10% of the remaining vitamin e in the diet; the rest comes from all the other food groups, with each providing relatively small amounts. tocopherol is relatively stable at normal cooking temperatures. foods stored at freezing temperatures lose an appreciable amount of their vitamin e content unless the temperatures are very low to prevent any oxidative changes. vitamin e is also destroyed by exposure to light and oxygen (pokorny, 2001; nicoli 1997). present study attempted extraction of phenolics and vitamin e contents of some plant foods as new potential sources of natural antioxidants. materials and methods three species of fruits and vegetables viz alocacia indica sch, eulophia ochreata lindl ,, momordica dioicia roxb., were purchased from were collected from three various localities of maharashtra, india. five wild edible plants viz asparagus officinalis, chlorophytum comosum, codia myxa, portulaca oleracia and solanum indicum were collected from three areas in around behbahan, iran in april 2008. fresh fruits and vegetables were cleaned with water and external moisture wiped out with a dry cloth. the edible portion of the individual fruits was separated, dried in a hot air oven at 50°c for 1 hr. the dried samples were powdered in blender for further study. some of the plants such as asparagus officinalis, chlorophytum comosum,and portulaca oleracia dried under shade so as to prevent the decomposition of chemical compounds. the plant foods analysis was carried out in lab. of department of food science, ramin agricultural university, ahvaz, iran. chemical reagents the chemical reagent abts [2,20-azino-bis (3-ethylbenzthiazoline6-sulfonic acid)] was purchased from calbiochem (darmst adt, germany). all other chemicals used were of analytical and hplc grade and obtained from sigma co. (st. louis, mo). phenolics analysis dried plants (50 g) were crushed using a laboratory mill. ground dry plant material (500 mg) was weighed into a test tube and 2 ml of a mixture of enzymes (5 mg of each enzyme: b-glucosidase, b xylosidase, b-galactosidase, and b-hesperidinase) and 0.5 ml sulfatase type h-2 diluted in citrate buffer at ph 5.5 were added. moreover, so2 (from nahso3), in order to prevent oxidative losses of phenolics, was added. the tested sample with enzyme were hydrolyzed in a water bath for 1 h at 37 ºc. then, samples were chilled to 20 ºc and kept in this condition for 24 h. then 2 ml of methanol were added to each vial and sonificated for 10 min by shaking occasionally (bas-10, poland). then, samples were centrifuged (5 min, 19000g; mpw250, poland) and the clear supernatant was injected into the hplc equipment. 2.4. identification and quantification of phenolic compounds twenty-microliter samples of each supernatant of spices were analyzed using an hplc system equipped with an l-7100 pump (merck hitachi) and an l-7455 photodiode array uv–vis detector (merck hitachi). the samples were injected using an l-7200 autosampler (merck hitachi). the polyphenols were separated using a lichrocart_ 125-3 purospher_ rp-18 (5 lm) mercklabs column heated at 30 ºc (l-7350 merck hitachi). the mobile phase was composed of solvent a (4.5% formic acid) and solvent b (80% of acetonitrile and 20% of solvent a). the programme began with isocratic elution with 95% a (0–1 min); then a linear gradient was issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 12-19, used until 16 min, lowering a to 20%; from 17 min to 24 min a decreased to 0%. the flow rate was 1 ml min_1, and the runs were integrated at 280 and 320, 360 nm for hydroxycinnamic acid and flavonoid derivatives, respectively. scanning was performed from 200 to 600 nm. phenolic compounds were identified by comparing retention times and uv–vis spectra with those of pure standards to indicate the preparations of standards and the range of calibration curves. the repeatability of the quantitative analysis was +4%. the analyses were replicated (n = 3), and the contents given as mean values, plus or minus the standard deviation. the results were expressed as milligrammes of each compound per g of dry weight (dw) spices. determination of vitamin e this evaluation was done by method of sanchez-machado with a little modification. a sub sample of 0.40 g(+0.001g) was weighed out in a screw-top assay tube. two hundred microliters of pyrocatechol solution was used as an antioxidant. five milliliters of koh solution (0.5 m in methanol) wert added and immediately vortexed for 20 sec. the tubes were placed in a water bath at 80ºc for 15 min, removed every 5 min, and vortexed again for 15 sec. after cooling in iced water, 1 ml of distilled water and 5ml of hexane was added, and the mixture was rapidly vortexed for 1 min, then centrifuged for 2 min. three milliliters of the upper phase were transferred to another test tube and dried under nitrogen. the residue was redissolved in 3 ml of the hplc mobile phase(68:28:4(v/v/v)methanol:acetonitrile:water), then membrane-filtered(poresize0.50µ; whatman, clifton, new jersey, usa). finally, an aliquot of 20 µl was injected into the hplc column. before injection, the extracts were maintained at -10 ºc away from light.stock standard solution of α-tocopherol(0.5 mg/ml) prepared also in 100% methanol and stored at -10 ºc away from light. statistical analysis three replicates of each sample were used for statistical analysis. data were subjected to analysis of variance, and means were compared by least significant difference (lsd). differences at p<0.05 were considered to be significant. results and discussion figure 2 showed amounts of total phenolics compounds of selected some food plants. s. indicum with (7.02±2.1mg/g) highest value and a. indica with (0.87±2.1 mg/g) lowest value respectively. the ranking order of eight plant species from point of view of phenolic compounds amounts was as follows: s. indicum > p.oleracia > c.myxa > m.dioica > a. officinalis > e. ocherata> c. comocum> a. indica. results showed that total phenolic amounts of momordica dioicia roxb and of cordia myxa roxbwere comparable with total phenolic amount of mint vegetable. but the amounts were more than total phenolic amounts of other vegetables (vinson, 2005). total phenolic amount of solanum indicum linn was more than total phenolic amounts of black berry stratil (2007) and cranberry vasco (2008). therefore, antioxidant capacity of solanum indicum linn. was high and antioxidant capacity of alocacia indica sch. was low. phenolic compounds could be a major determinant of antioxidant potentials of food plants and could therefore be a natural source of antioxidants and because phenolic compounds have been associated with the health benefits derived from consuming high levels of fruits and vegetables, therefore, solanum indicum linn. has high preservation capacity and nutritional values, because total phenolic compounds prevent from damage of nutrients contain double bonds such fatty acids, flavor compounds even proteins and amino acids and other compounds kahkonen (1999). the amount of total phenolics varied in different plant foods and ranged from 0.87 to 7.02 mg gae/g of dry material. the amount of total phenolic compounds in all tested plant foods was higher than the other lamiaceous plants reported such as thymus vulgaris kaur (2002), mentha piperita, melissa officinalis and rosmarinus officinalis (lister , 2001). some selected phenolics of 14 american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 12-19, 15 these plant foods, have previously been separated and identified by comparison with authentic standards using reversed-phase high performance liquid chromatography (hplc), and rosmarinic acid was the predominant phenolic acid in these plant foods (mazumder, 1997). many factors could contribute to this variation, such as the plant variety, growing condition, maturity, season, geographic location, soil type, storage conditions and amount of sunlight received. other contributing factor for this difference may be also due to sample preparation and analytical procedures (pietta, 1998). data are displayed from mean values with three repeat ± sd more than 4000 phenol compounds (flavonoids, monophenols and polyphenols) are found in vascular plants. phenolic compounds, such as querecetin, rutin, narigin, catechine, caffeic acid, gallic acid and chlorogenic acid are very important plant constituents. the type of phenolic compounds is an important factor since following consumption of fruits, phenolics are usually present in plasma at concentration not exceeding 10µm. there are several factors involves in determining the ratio of free to conjugated phenolics in plasma. among these factors are the type of polyphenol, the fruit stage of maturity, the state of health of the fruit, method of harvesting and storage (sellappan, 2002). yet, current data in the literature on the relationship between the polyphenol content of plants and their antioxidant activity are sometimes contradictory. while some authors have observed such a high correlation between the two others found no such correlation exists or only a very weak one (spanos, 1990). samples vitamin e amounts were compared, it is observed that portulaca contains the most value (11.6 mg/100g), but vitamin e in solanum, chlorophytum and alocacia are not detected (figure 1). portulaca contains most values of phenolic compounds and vitamin e, therefore this plant have the highest of antioxidant property. the antioxidant property give to plant high shelf-life then high consumption capacity in between of people, therefore this plant have high nutritional value from point of view of vitamin e. vitamin e is actually a collective term for eight compounds: (α-,β-,γ,δ) tocopherols, and (α-,β-,γ-,δ) tocotrienols, but αtocopherol, accounts for 90% of endogenous vitamine activity in humans. vitamin e is readily incorporated into cell membranes, which, being rich in polyunsaturated fatty acids, are highly susceptible to damage by free radicals derived from metabolic activity. epidemiological studies show a strong inverse correlation between risk of cancer and vitamin e intake at the population level, but the association is not corroborated by studies of individual taking supplements. moreover, a well –controlled investigation designed to issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 12-19, test the hypothesis that dietary supplementation with vitamin e would reduce the recurrence of adenomas in patients who had undergone polypectomy showed no evidence of a protective effect. similarly, a prolonged placebocontrolled intervention with vitamin e or vitamin e and betacarotene failed to prevent the development of long cancer in smokers (sun chu & wu lia, 2002; zheng, 2001; simon, 1999). figure1. amount of vitamin e of eight edible plants obtained from india and iran. data are displayed from mean values with three repeat food sources of phenolic compounds though phenolic compounds are present in almost all foods of plant origin, fruits, vegetables, and beverages are the major sources of these compounds in the human diet (hertog, 1993). fruits and vegetables there are wide variations between the total phenolics contents of the different fruits or vegetables, or even for the same fruits or vegetables reported by different authors. these differences may be due to the complexity of these groups of compounds, and the methods of extraction and analysis (bravo, 1998; kalt, 2001). for example, phenolic compounds present in fruits are found in both free and bound forms (mainly as b-glycosides), but as the latter are often excluded from analyses, the total phenolics contents of fruits are often underestimated (sun, 2002). besides, phenolics contents of plant foods depend on a number of intrinsic (genus, species, cultivars) and extrinsic (agronomic, environmental, handling and storage) factors (tomas berberan, 2001). species differences are also pronounced, which suggests that the phenolics content of some fruits, i.e., banana, litchi (lichee), mango, and persimmon is considerably lower than that of berries and grapes. asami, hong, barrett, and mitchell (asami, 2003) reported that organically grown strawberries were found to have higher phenolics content than conventionally grown crops, though another study could not establish such a correlation (hakkinen & torrenen, 2000). processing and 16 american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 12-19, 17 storage may have varying impacts on different phenolic compounds, as seen in berry processing where myricetin and kaempferol were found to be more prone to losses than quercetin (hakkinen, 2000). obtained results from phenolics contents (per mg/g) of this study was more than shown results in table 2. table 2. phenolics content of selected vegetables vegetable total phenolics content reference broccoli 101.6 + 1.24a chu et al. (2002) brussel sprouts 68.8+ 1.3b kaur and kapoor (2002) cabbage 54.6 +7.0a chu et al. (2002) carrot 56.4 +5.1a chu et al. (2002) cucumber 19.5 +1.6a chu et al. (2002) mint 399.8 + 3.2b kaur and kapoor (2002) spinach 91.0 +8.5a chu et al. (2002) tomato 25.9 +50.0c martı´nez-valverde et al. (2002) a mg gallic acid equivalents/ l. b mg ferulic acid equivalents/l. conclusions the total phenolic content of eight selected wild plants were examined. these plants showed different total phenolic contents. in particular, the stem and tuber of a. officinalis and e. ocharata respectively(vitamin e antioxidant) and the leaves of p. oleracia possessed the highest antioxidant amounts(both vitamin e and phenolics antioxidants) and thus could be potential rich sources of natural antioxidants. antioxidants in these plants were capable of reducing oxidants and scavenging free radicals. in the future, the specific compounds with high antioxidant capacities should be isolated, purified and identified from these plants to further develop natural antioxidants. acknowledgements the author is grateful to the head department of botany university of pune for providing necessary laboratory facilities and for encouragement. the author also is thankful to head department of food science technology of isfahan technology university of iran for providing facilities of this work. references asami, d. k., hong, y.-j., barrett, d. m., & mitchell, a. e. 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(2001). phenolic compounds and related enzymes as determinants of quality of fruits and vegetables. journal of the science of food and agriculture, 81, 853–876. tawaha, k. alali, f.q. gharaibeh, m. mohammad, m. & el-elimat, t. (2007). antioxidant activity and total phenolic content of selected jordanian plant species. food chemistry, 104, 1372-1378. vasco, c. ruales, j. & eldin, a.k. (2008). total phenolic compounds and antioxidant capacities of major fruits from ecuador. food chemistry, 111, 816-823. vinson, j. a. zubik, l. bose, p. samman, n. & proch, j. (2005). dried fruits: excellent in vitro and in vivo antioxidants. journal of the american college of nutrition, 24(1), 44-50. zheng, w., & wang, s. y., (2001). antioxidant activity and phenolic compounds in selected herbs. journal of agricultural and food chemistry. 49(11), 5165–5170. microsoft word 67-full article with author-180-1-4-20210808 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics big data biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology climate change dairy science & poultry science decision support system ecotourism environmental science fisheries dental and medical science experimental agriculture food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing precision farming ict for agricultural development iot, 4ir irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering renewable energy social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 11 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org challenges of lpg supply, distribution & pricing in growing market: bangladesh case study md. mehedi hasan1*, md. foysal alam bhuiyanb2, engr. md. jakaria jalal3 doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5271670 abstract the prime energy scarcity is nowadays a mostly the debated issue in bangladesh in the awaken of spreading energy and fuel crisis. pipeline natural gas support only 6 % domestic consumption of total population by 16 % of total produced gas which is declined mode. the claim of natural gas is on the continuous increase to meet domestic needs in the city, suburban areas together with industrial, commercial, power generation and diverse usage against the scarcity of gas. the demand for natural gas is on the continuous increase to meet domestic needs in the urban, suburban areas alongside industrial, commercial, power generation and diverse usage against the scarcity of gas. in this situation, lpg becomes a popular alternative energy source to reduce the natural gas crisis along with providing clean fuel in rustic areas. lpg is using by about 81% in its total amount for domestic purposes. at present in 2018 lpg demand in bangladesh is approximate 750,000 mt and in future 2025 it would be 250, 0000 mt with growth rate 25%, 17 %, 14%, 15 %, 8%, 20% and 17% respectively. now a day 12 kg lpg cylinders price is bdt 1150-1200 because of the variety of market barriers, government vat and higher transaction costs which is not affordable for the middle as well as a low-income family though bangladesh government fixed the price every month. lpg could assume an increasingly significant job in giving cooking energy to low-middle pay family units in bangladesh if an appropriate advertising structure and circulation plan are masterminded. the aim of this project is to find out the challenges of lpg supply, distribution, and pricing in the growing bangladesh market and to make a well planned and details road map so that lpg companies of bangladesh can serve 70% of the domestic cooking fuel through lpg by 2025. keywords: natural gas, shortage, lpg market growth, challenges, bangladesh. 1 department of petroleum and mining engineering, jashore university of science and technology, jashore 7408, bangladesh 2 executive, corporate and strategic sales, bashundhara lp gas ltd. 3 head of division, ed, sales, bashundhara lp gas ltd. * corresponding author: md. mehedi hasan, department of petroleum and mining engineering, jashore university of science & technology, jashore 7408, bangladesh. email: mehedi_pme@just.edu.bd american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 12 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction liquified petroleum gas (lpg) initiate by dr. walter snelling in 1912 is a non-inexhaustible wellspring of energy like every non-renewable energy source which is removed from raw petroleum and flammable gas where the principal creation is three or four carbon particles. the typical parts of lpg therefore, are propane (c3h8) 30% and butane (c4h10) 70%. little groupings of different hydrocarbons may likewise be available (edugreen, 2019; hahn e., 2019). under slight pressure for lpg (propane) goes from 152 kpa (24 psig or 1.5 bar) at 0ºc to 2482 kpa (360 psig or 24.8 bar) at 70ºc) (hahn e. 2019). lpg turns into liquid form and can then be stored in tanks. lpg converted back to gas before being burned. therefore, that lpg cylinder is typically filled to 80%, meaning 80% liquid and 20% vapor (edugreen, 2019; hahn e., 2019). bangladesh is an extremely fascinating and engaging business sector for lpg in light of the fact that it is a spotless and safe fuel that has a scope of properties nearest to oil. lpg not just use in households, there are huge prospects of lpg in autogas. subsequently, the future lpg market in bangladesh is high, as the normal income level per family has been developing continually for quite a long time (rahman m., 2017; islam m.s, 2018; power system master plan 2016; adb ta 8839 ban, 2016). then again, the appeal of natural gas is on an unending increment to address local issues in the urban, rural regions close by powered, business, control age and differing utilization against the deficiency of gas. according to energy expert, the remain natural gas reserve will be kaput within 10 to 15 years which is shown in projected demand and supply in figure 1 and figure 2 (energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019; hydrocarbon unit, 2021).) for example, in the year 2035, total demand (8000 mmscfd) supply (5880 mmscfd) gap nearly 2120 mmscfsd. to meet the supply shortage, lpg is the best solution for household energy supply (islam m.s 2018, energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019; power system master plan 2016; hydrocarbon unit, 2021).) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 13 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org figure 1: produced vs remaining gas reserve for all fields in bangladesh (power system master plan 2016, energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019; hydrocarbon unit., 2021). the principal purpose of the lpg sector is to attain household fuel demand and transportation. the aim of the paper is to find out the challenges of lpg supply, distribution & pricing in the growing bangladesh market and its ultimate solutions by taking with local stockholder, businessman, market visit and analyzing the energy situations in bangladesh. 0 1000 2000 3000 4000 5000 6000 7000 8000 g as f ie ld n am e ti ta s h ab ig an j ka m ta ba kh ra ba d n ar sh in gd i m eg hn a fe ni ka ila s ti la sy lh et ra sh id pu r ch at ta k be an i b az ar sh ah ba zp ur se m ut an g fe nc hu ga nj sa ld an ad i su nd al pu r sr ik ai l ja la la ba d m ou la vi b az ar bi bi ya na ba ng ur a sa ng u be gu m ga nj ru pg an j m m sc f gas field name cumulative production remaning reserve american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 14 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org figure 2: projection of gas production in bangladesh (energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019; hydrocarbonunit. (2021). why lpg is the best option for domestic purpose in bangladesh? about 160 million+ inhabitants, bangladesh needs a very accurate and comprehensive plan to supply primary fuel for cooking. pipelined natural gas support 6 % domestic consumption of total population by 16 % of total produced gas which is declined mode (islam m.s 2018, islam m.s 2018, energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019;) as per the bangladesh government plan, around 2.3 million ng residential clients and 0.18 million cng autos to be changed over in lpg/different options by 2025. on the other hand, lpg (propane 2572 btu/ft3 , butane 3225 btu/ft3 ) has higher calorific value than petrol, wood, kerosene and produce less co2, ultra-fine particulates, nox than petrol or diesel engine (tinleytech, chowdhury i. 2018, engineering toolbox). it not only is good for the engine but also for the environment as it is free of lead and contains very low sulfur and other heavy metals. in adding to the fact that lpg is economy than petrol and diesel when relating the cost per mile for fuel. 11761.53 10872.24 10141.25 9709.9 8301.46 6802.41 5880.88 5498.74 0 2000 4000 6000 8000 10000 12000 14000 2018-19 2019-20 2020-21 2021-22 2025-26 2030-31 2035-36 2041-42 g as r es er ve (b cf ) economic year remaining reserve of gas (bcf) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 15 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org present lpg market situation in bangladesh bangladesh's lpg demand is just 2% of absolute oil demand, and under 0.01% out of the allout energy request (chowdhury i., 2016; habib, w. b., & molla, m. a.-m., 2019).) which can be expanded by the inaccessibility of new ng associations at household, expanding the cost of kerosene and diminishing openness of firewood. however, lpg request is expected to develop provocatively as a substitute for household cooking fuel and transportation fuel (as autogas). the rising interest for lpg is an outcome of exhausting gas stores in the country (habib, w. b., & molla, m. a.-m., 2019). about 81% of total lpg in bangladesh is used for the domestic purpose, 14% is used for the industrial purpose, 1% is used for the large industry, 1% as transport called lpg as autogas and 3% is used for other purposes (shown in figure 3) where bashundhara and omera’s market share nearly 44% flowed by jamuna 17%, bm 11%, laugfs 7%, totalgaz -5%, others 16%. (rahman m., 2017; islam m.s, 2018; islam m.s, 2018; chowdhury i., 2016; habib, w. b., & molla, m. a.-m., 2019) figure 3: sector wise lpg uses in bangladesh (islam m.s, 2018; rahman m. a., 2018; chowdhury i., 2018) the lpg market increasing (2016-50 %, 2017 -51 % and 2018 -31%) dramatically last five years and predicted that will increase 2,700,000 mt in 2025 from 131,916 mt in 2015. the lpg market and its forecast up to 2025 with year-by-year growing percentages given in figure 4 (rahman, m. a., 2018; mahmud f.,2019). domestric 81% autogas 1% small industries 14% large industries 1% other 3% american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 16 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org figure 4: the lpg market and its forecast up to 2025 (islam m.s 2018, jahangir s. 2018, bangladesh lpg import forecast 2018-2025, mahmud, f. 2019.) this graph clearly indicates that if 2.30 million natural gas users and 0.18 million cng users converted to lpg, the market will be higher than the forecast. challenges of lpg supply, distribution & pricing in bangladesh challenges of lpg supply in bangladesh market in 2017, the world lpg association’s annual report mentioned: bangladesh one of the fastest-growing markets of the world. within five years, the number of import terminals reached 18 (eighteen) from 6 (six). with initial pioneer investor bashundhara, jamuna spacetech, total and laugfs, omera, bpc, few other local big names added to the importers’ list, in addition to the old players’ reinvestment. more than 55 privet lpg companies in total in bangladesh, which are directly or indirectly, involved in the lpg business. at present condition more, than 50 lpg companies get a license from the government for business in bangladesh and from those companies five or six will come to operation in next 10 to 12 month and about 20 lpg companies are now in the operation field in bangladesh (bee r.e, 2012; islam m.s, 2018; islam m.s ,2018; makeen energy published, 2017; mahmud, f., 2019). 75 91 0 87 56 0 98 94 0 10 69 56 13 19 16 26 31 00 51 70 00 75 00 00 10 00 00 0 12 00 00 0 14 00 00 0 16 50 00 0 18 00 00 0 22 50 00 0 27 00 00 0 13 % 12 % 7% 19 % 50 % 49 % 31 % 25 % 17 % 14 % 15 % 8% 20 % 17 % 2 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 1 3 2 0 1 4 2 0 1 5 2 0 1 6 2 0 1 7 2 0 1 8 2 0 1 9 2 0 2 0 2 0 2 1 2 0 2 2 2 0 2 3 2 0 2 4 2 0 2 5 lpg import import forcast american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 17 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org private sector import lpg (more than 95% of the country lpg demand) from singapore, malaysia, saudi arabia, abu dubai, and kuwait by saudi aramco (the state-owned oil company of saudi arabia) monthly contract price. the buyer has to pay aramco contract price during their order for bulk lpg from the global market and need to add the freight per ton charge (for shipment to bangladesh) which reached in bangladesh after 2-4 months later (islam m.s 2018; adb ta 8839 ban 2016; mahmud, f., 2019).). almost the total amount of lpg demand in our country is met by the imported lpg from abroad by bulk lpg cargo ship the supply chain of lpg given in figure 5. figure 5: lpg supply procedure in bangladesh as lpg imported by lpg cargo ship, so seaport is also an important factor for lpg import. other hand government policy and saudi aramco contract prices are big challenges for lpg supply in bangladesh which are shown in figure 6. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 18 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org figure 6: lpg supply challenges in bangladesh (bee r.e , 2012; islam m.s, 2018; adb ta 8839 ban 2016) challenges of lpg distribution in bangladesh market lpg business is entirely different than fmcg business or any sustenance and drinks like a one-time business. this business is all about a close relationship with the client, merchants, retailers, and transporters. the dispersion procedure of lpg in bangladesh appeared in figure 7. to do a good business by following all this criterion some challenges have come forward: 1) managing cylinder supply chain managing cylinder supply network is the most down to earth challenge in lpg business, which is a considerable amount overwhelming in weight and cost too is the way to fortify the organization to do the business easily. 2) growing up the safety culture among the distributors and retailers growing up the safety culture among the distributors and retailers is also a big challenge to grow the business in a sustainable manner. 3) lacking awareness lacking consciousness of doing good faith business among wholesalers and companies is also a challenge in recent days. 4) malpractices by ill-motivated executive american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 19 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org malpractices by the ill-motivated executive, traditional bureaucratic delays from different government bodies. 5) infrastructure the existing infrastructure at bangladesh ports for lpg is inadequate to meet present demand. the draft problem of the river, the large ship can’t enter those rivers from the deep sea. therefore, the distribution cost is increased. due to inadequate import facilities on the coast, inland movement is required and the costs are substantial. in bangladesh, there is more than 18 lpg terminal in 2018 and it will be reached to 30 in 2025 . almost more than 15 satellite filling stations are established by various lpg company (where bashundhara lp gas and omera petroleum contain 3 lpg satellites each of them) to distribute and maintain the lpg cylinder chain all over the country. rangpur division (districts like rangpur, dinajpur & thakurgaon) and sylhet division (districts like mowlabubazar, hobigonj, sunamjganj ) have lower penetration in lpg coverage as compared to other divisions through the river. lpg transportation via road costly than transport by the river with small lpg vessels (chowdhury i. 2016; energy scenario bangladesh: 2017-18 2019; adb ta 8839 ban 2016). figure 7: lpg distribution process in bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 20 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the brta laws to carry lpg cylinder, executive distribution channel, higher premium cost, consumer behaviors are the big challenge for growing lpg market in bangladesh challenges of lpg pricing in bangladesh market lpg can play a vital and useful role to provide a secure primary energy mix. the price of the lpg cylinder at customer ends mainly depends on government import policies, lpg station licensing process, transportation, relevant infrastructure, hidden cost, etc. which are shown in figure 8. the main challenges of lpg pricing in bangladesh are pricing strategy, regulations, necessary supply chain development, future needs, technical and technological efficiency, assessment of futuristic demand growth and scopes for use in industry and transport communication sector, domestic users' and safety guidance, etc. figure 8: the lpg cylinder price dependency in bangladesh the operator of bangladesh purchases lpg from the international market either in spot or term contract. for the pricing of lpg, some challenges come forward are disused below. the saudi aramco contract price the saudi aramco contract price is the most important factor that determines the lpg prices in bangladesh. it is also known as “cp price”. the operators purchase lpg from the international market either in spot or term contract. its formula is generally based on cp plus freight and premium. there are several factors that decide the freight and premium, but the cp always remains constant for a month. saudi aramco is responsible to declare monthly cp lpg cylinder price hiden cost lpg association customers distribute r, dealer , saller transporti ng system bureaucra tic delays producer & supplier price equipments & appliance manufactur er and supplier american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 21 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org for the international market. the importers have to pay for freight, premium and necessary duty & taxes to release the gas from the ship. after including all sorts of overheads the expanses the gas is solid the market in the different pack sizes. lpg price for customer = saudi aramco contract price + premium cost + cylinder refilling cost + dealer profit + distributor profit + local seller profit vat on lpg accessories vat on lpg accessories is also a big challenge for lpg pricing. lpg accessories like lpg cylinders, lpg valves, regulators, hose pipe, clips, burners of different sizes. unless these items get the benefit of vat exemption, the penetration lpg shall always remain challenging aggressive marketing to capture market share the operator wants to sell to their distributors & dealers at a lower rate with a very low margin to capture market share. therefore, it is one of the practical challenges for lpg pricing different freight and premium for different companies some companies can bring cargo at a relatively lower price because of their storage advantage. so, these operators do not tend to increase the price right away and putting the other operators in pressure. so, it is also a big pricing challenge for lpg company. conclusion and recommendation conclusion bangladesh lpg industry has a great prospect no doubt but we have to consider a few issues resolved as discussed above. moreover, we should not overrate the industry in such a way so that investors are jeopardized in the end upon invested and get ruined their money. if all the challenges are be solved then the lpg industry of bangladesh will take a sustainable position in the energy sector and they will be able to fulfill the target to serve 70% of the domestic cooking fuel will be served through lpg by 2025, with a reasonable price for the middleand low-income people. in the invigorate of expanding energy emergency, the following suggestions can be pursued upgrade of lpg ubiquity. by following those recommendations, i think the lpg companies will be able to spear the lpg among the rural and sub the rural part of the country and they will be able to make lpg more popular than other traditional fuel sources (wood, animal waste, kerosene, etc.) recommendation american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 22 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org  developing new higher capacity import terminals near deep-sea ports (draft – 50 meter) to facilitate the handling of higher capacity carriers (50,000 -100,000 mt)  high capacity bulk stories facilities (mother storage) near deep seaports need to construct.  dredging needed in the river to transport the lpg within major strategic locations of the country for efficient & cheaper way of lpg distribution.  proper national lpg policies for sourcing, tariff, retail distribution and market management imposed by gob.  to cut the distribution cost of lpg, lpg rectification may use in high rise building gas supply  government should take the necessary steps to reduce the monopoly business in the lpg sector.  increase the price of pipe gas (two-burner 2500 bdt and one burner -1500 bdt) and subsidize in lpg cylinder price (12 kg cylinder maximum 800 bdt). highlights  16 % natural gas used by 6 % of total population  lpg is the household alternative energy in absence of natural gas  the demand of lpg will increase 320 % within next 10 years  government policy, infrastructure, awareness, international price are the main challenges to grow the lpg market.  government should take necessary steps to reduce the challenges to increase the market share of lpg market in bangladesh references adb ta 8839 ban: study on energy security draft final report on energy security (2016), american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 23 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org available:.https://powerdivision.portal.gov.bd/sites/default/files/files/powerdivision.po rtal.gov.bd/page/c96429b5_a481_4ee3_8095_6746b376dcfd/ta%208839_revised%2 0draft%20final%20report%20on%20energy%20security%20(appendix%20c)_sub mission_29th%20june%202016.pdf . accessed date 22 june 2021. bangladesh lpg import forecast 2018-2025, lightcastle primary research. available: https://datasets.databd.co/datasets/a530b520-be31-11e8-914b-2d5ef8e77230/resourcebd4189a0-be31-11e8-9de5-0bb7b3c2b0ce accessed 15 may 2021. bee r.e 2012 “lpg: exceptional energy for bangladesh” available: 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(2018). lpg use jumps four-fold in three years. retrieved from https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/trade/lpg-use-jumps-four-fold-in-three-years1540701422 rahman, s. (2018). lpg market heating up. the daily star. retrieved from https://www.thedailystar.net/business/lpg-market-heating-1569343 tinleytech “introduction to lpg” available: http://tinleytech.co.uk/complete-lpgguide/introduction-to-lpg/ accessed 15 june 2020. microsoft word 1.sadika.doc american journal agricultural science and engineering technology role of socio-economic factors to determine technical efficiency of shrimp farmers of bangladesh sadika h.  1, siegfried b.2, madan m. d.3, nazmul h.4 and puran m.5 abstract this paper is an attempt to measure the technical efficiency of shrimp farmers in bangladesh using a translog production frontier and inefficiency effect model. a sample of 185 farmers has been considered from the paikgacha upazila of khulna district. the result shows high levels of technical inefficiency exists in shrimp cultivation. the mean efficiency is 71% which suggests that farmers could increase production by increasing technical inefficiency by 29%. the efficiency differences are significantly explained by farm size, education, share of non-farm income, training, distance from pond to water source, water quality etc. key words: shrimp, technical efficiency, translog stochastic production frontier. introduction shrimp production plays very important role in the economy of bangladesh in terms of export and employment. over the last two and half decades, from 1983 to 2008, the volume of shrimp cultivated has increased more than 14 times. the area of shrimp has also expanded from 20,000 ha in 1980 to 150,000 ha in 2001 (karim, 2005) and this expansion has also been spurred by the introduction of 2002-03 shrimp export cash incentives and the government encouragement to farmers to increase shrimp production (deb and bairagi, 2009). shrimp farming has also created a substantial volume of employment in the coastal regions of bangladesh through its forward and backward linkages (i.e. processing, marketing and exporting). it is estimated that there are over 600,000 people employed directly in shrimp aquaculture who support around 3.5 million dependents (usaid, 2006). but the problems of disease and environmental degradation have contributed to a decline in productivity, with many shrimp farmers experiencing negative profits, a decline in living conditions and economic losses. disease outbreaks are results of unnecessary use of chemicals, lack of proper water exchange and degradation of water quality (alam, 2007). by nature, the expansion of shrimp farming is dependent on tidal flow of common property brackish water which flows from water source to the main canals, main canals to sub-canals and the supply of water at the farms behind the sub-canals is usually done by using the others farm  corresponding author’s e-mail: sadikahaque@yahoo.com 1, 2, 4 and 5 justus liebig university of giessen, germany 3 aquaculture/fisheries centre, university of arkansas at pine bluff, ar 71601, usa. american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. land. thus, problem of a head-enders and tail-enders arises. the water management is very easy for the head-enders and tail-ender farmers exchange water by using others’ private land and in most cases, they face restricted access to water exchange. due to restricted access, the water quality degrades that affects shrimp production (mazid, 2003). as a consequence, the tail-enders lease out land to the head-enders, leave farming occupation and engage in other non-farming activities. literature informs us, different factors; such as institutional, social and economic issues contribute to increase productivity and efficiency as well as economic well-being. according to that, shrimp production can be increased by improving the technical and allocative efficiency, using existing resources and new technology. te is more important where use of farm-produced inputs (not purchased from the market) is highly prevalent (singh, et. al, 2009). given the above stated situation, the main objective of this paper is to measure the level of technical efficiency of shrimp producers and its determinants in the south-west coastal areas of bangladesh. the results are expected to provide information to the policy level how higher productivity could be gained by improving technical efficiency of shrimp farming in bangladesh. the paper is organized as follows; the next section presents methodological issues. the results are presented and discussed in the third section and the last section draws conclusion and some implications for policy. methodology literature posits different methodologies to measure technical efficiency. farrell (1957) pointed out that the frontier production function is appropriate for such analysis as it meets the theoretical definition of a production function. after his seminal paper, there has been a growing interest in methodologies and their applications to efficiency measurement. among all the literatures, the frontier production function approach by aigner, et. al, (1977) can generally be considered an appropriate method where they defined the random term is separated into two independent components as: yi = f (xi,β) + vi-ui; where yi = output for observation i, β = vector of parameters. vi is the two-sided symmetric, normally distributed random error {vi~ n(0,σv 2)} representing the usual statistical noise found in any relationship and ui ≥ 0 is a one-sided error representing technical inefficiency with a half normal distribution {ui~ |n(0, σu 2)|}. aigner, et. al, (1977) derived the log-likelihood function for the model as: lnl(y/βλσ2) = n ln  2 + n ln σ-1 +   n i 1 ln [1-f(εiλσ-1)] – ( 22 1  )  n i 1 2 1 ; in which εi = error term for observation i. the error term εi is made up of two independent components (vi-ui). later jondrow et al., (1982), bravo-ureta and rieger (1991) and others expressed the likelihood function in terms of the two variance parameters, σ2 = σu 2 + σv 2 and λ = σu/σv. they interpreted λ to be an indicator of the relative variability of the two sources of the random error that distinguishes firms from one another. here λ = σu/σv, is the ratio of the standard deviation of the non-negative error term ui to the standard deviation of the two-sided symmetric error term vi. if λ approaches 0 then it implies σv very large or σu is close to zero. similarly, when σv is close to zero, λ becomes issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, 21 22 large and the one-sided error becomes the dominant source of random variation in the model (rahman, 2002). the next step is to estimate the farm-specific technical efficiency for the individual observation. the farm-specific technical efficiency relative to the stochastic production frontier as the ratio of observed output to the frontier or expected output. that is: exp. (-ui) = v i i exf y )( ; the value of ui is practically unobservable and the farm-specific technical efficiency is usually obtained by finding out the conditional expectation of ui given εi. based on the above mentioned literature, a stochastic cobb-douglas production frontier model may be written as: in y = b0 +   k i 1 bi in xi + vi-ui; where b0 = ln a. though the cobb-douglas production function is the most widely used form for fitting agricultural production data, but it imposes certain limitations, such as: constant elasticity regardless of the input level; and the elasticity of substitution among inputs is unity whereas the translog production function does not impose these restrictions and it is a flexible functional form. however, the translog production function is more difficult to mathematically manipulate and it can suffer from degrees of freedom and multicollinearity problems (coelli, et. al, 1998). the translog function has been used in stochastic production frontier studies by wilson, et. al, (2001), awudu and eberlin (2001), awudu and huffman (2000), rahman and rahman (2005). the translog frontier production model could be defined as: in yi = βo +   n j 1 βj ln xji +   n j 1   p k 1 βj ln xji ln xki + vi-ui where yi represents the output on i-th farm; βo represents intercept term; βj is the effect due to the x input in the i-th farm; βjk is the interaction effect of the inputs xj, and xk, in the i-th farm; in this study, y = output (kg) and xis are area, labor, lime, fry, fertilizer and feed. the technical inefficiency model is defined by: ui = δ0 +δ1 age +δ2 education+δ3 training +δ4 non farm income + δ5 (non farm income)2 +δ6 family labor+ δ7 ownership + δ8 water quality+ δ9 distance + δ10 farm size + δ11 (farm size)2 +δ11 local + wi it is important to mention that the inefficiency effect model can only be estimated if inefficiency effects are stochastic and have particular distributional specification. therefore, testing null hypothesis is important based on inefficiency effects are not present; h0:  = 0 = . . . = 10 = 0; the inefficiency effects are not stochastic, h0:=0; and the coefficients of the variables in the model for the inefficiency effects are zero, h0: 1 = 2 = 3 =………= 10 = 0. coelli (1995) suggested that the one-sided generalized likelihood-ratio test should be performed when ml estimation is involved because this test has the correct size (rahman, 2002). the generalized likelihood-ratio test is a one sided test since γ cannot take negative values. the test statistic is calculated issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. 23 as:      1ln2 0 hlhllr  ; where l (h0) and l (h1) are the values of the likelihood function under the specifications of the null and alternative hypotheses, respectively. data and descriptive statistics as a data set, 185 shrimp farmers were interviewed using a structured interview schedule from paikgacha upazilla. multistage random sampling technique was followed on the basis of distance from the water source (head and tail enders) and farm size (small, medium and large). farmers whose fields are adjacent to the canal are considered as head enders and if distance is ≥ 5 meter then, they are considered as tail enders. while selecting samples from head and tail-enders, farm size was also considered proportionately like as small, medium and large. in bangladesh, farms with ≤1 hectare are considered as small; ≤ 2.5 hectares, medium and above 2.5 hectares, large. from them, 65 farmers were head ender and the rest 120 were tail-enders of which, 74 farmers were small, 59 were medium and 52 farmers were large. data was collected in 2008. the descriptive statistics of all variables has been presented in table 1 and in the inefficiency model (table 2), wis are unobservable random variables, which are assumed to be independently distributed with a positive half-normal distribution. the parameters of stochastic frontier and translog production function models are estimated by the method of maximum likelihood, using the computer program, frontier version 4.1. table 1. descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation) of the variables inputs and output variables (per hectare) output (kg.) land (area of one pond, hec.) labor (mandays) lime (kg) fingerlings (no.) fertilizer (kg.) feed (kg.) 184.9 (61.08) 4.38 (9.64) 115.2 (41.59) 44.77 (23.39) 12848 (3047) 10.98 (29.51) 49.55 (31.23) technical inefficiency estimators age of household head education (number of school years) nfi (share of non-farm income) no. of adult family labor distance (meter) from canal to pond farm size (hectare) 39.39 (12.73) 8.56 (3.92) .452 (.274) 2.56 (1.088) 206.5 (364.7) 5.73 (10.35) training, ownership and water quality are dummy variables where 1 for trained farmer, owner operator and good quality water respectively, local is also a dummy variable where 1 is if farmers are living in farming community (within 10 km from the pond). results and discussion before analyzing the inefficiency effects, hypothesis was tested on the choice of functional form (cobb–douglas versus translog) and it was found that translog production function is a better representation of the production structure (table 3). therefore, this study focuses on the results of the translog production function. table 2 shows results of the stochastic frontier model from the two different functional forms. gamma (γ) measures the level of the inefficiency in the var iance parameter which ranges between 0 and 1. for the translog model, it is estimated at 0.564, this can issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, 24 be interpreted as: 56 percent of random variation in shrimp production is explained by inefficiency. table 2. maximum likelihood (ml) estimates for parameters of cobb-douglas and translog stochastic production frontier functions and technical inefficiency effect variables parameters cobbdouglas model translog model coefficient std. error coefficient std. error intercept β0 4.9300** 0.0036 3.19802** 0.9861 ln land β1 0.3926** 0.1035 0.4153** 0.0049 ln labor β2 0.2614** 0.0015 0.2964** 0.0114 ln lime β3 0.0121** 0.0001 0.0108 0.0438 ln fry β4 0.1884** 0.0677 0.2047** 0.8650 ln fertilizer β5 0.0170 0.0090 0.0165 0.1064 ln feed β6 0.0081 0.0242 0.0093 0.9074 ½ ln land2 β11 0.0339 0.0295 ½ ln labor2 β22 0.0026** 0.0040 ½ ln lime2 β33 -0.2259 0.9789 ½ ln fry2 β44 0.5319 1.6392 ½ ln fertilizer2 β55 0.0056 0.0263 ½ ln feed2 β66 -0.0052 0.0109 ln land x ln labor β12 0.7968 0.8143 ln land x ln lime β13 0.0064 0.0058 ln land x ln fry β14 -0.2423 0.9535 ln land x ln fertilizer β15 -0.0025 0.0148 ln land x ln feed β16 0.0325 0.3637 ln labor x ln lime β23 2.546** 1.014 ln labor x ln fry β24 0.0077 0.0695 ln labor xln fertilizer β25 1.7031* 0.9058 ln labor x ln feed β26 0.0186 0.0223 ln lime x ln fry β34 -0.0064 0.0158 ln lime x ln fertilizer β35 -1.5351 1.4113 ln lime x ln feed β36 -0.0174 0.0407 ln fry x ln fertilizer β45 0.0042 0.0268 ln fry x ln feed β46 0.3422 0.8836 ln fertilizer x ln feed β56 -0.5012 0.4918 technical inefficiency factors intercept δ0 -0.0261 0.6549 -0.0478 0.2308 age δ1 0.0418 0.0704 0.0001 0.0086 education δ2 0.0391** 0.0040 0.0074** 0.0018 training δ3 -1.382** 0.1970 -0.0005** 0.0175 non-farm income δ4 -0.003** 0.0007 -0.0022** 0.0196 (non-farm income)2 δ5 0.0001** 0.0000 0.0001** 0.0000 family labor δ6 -0.0004 0.0000 -0.6032* 0.3473 ownership δ7 -0.0003* 0.0001 -0.0004** 0.0001 water quality δ8 0.0104** 0.0031 0.0104** .00426 distance δ9 0.0049** 0.0010 0.0123** 0.0022 farm size δ10 -0.0001** 0.0000 -0.0010** 0.0002 (farm size)2 δ11 0.0091* 0.0038 0.0074* 0.0031 local dummy δ12 -0.103 0.2905 -0.1090* 0.0050 variance parameters 2 0.0159** 0.0022 0.0110** 0.0436 γ 0.5999** 0.0652 0.5639** 0.0389 the mean technical efficiency (te) is computed and it is 71 percent for both models. hypotheses have also been tested by using likelihood-ratio (lr) test statistic. the null hypothesis, there is no issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. inefficiency is rejected at the 1% level of significance and establishes the presence of inefficiency effects and they are stochastic. in addition, the null hypothesis that the inefficiency effects are not present in the model (ho: µ=γ= 0), is also rejected at the same level of significance. thus, a significant part of the variability in production among farms has been explained by the existing differences in the level of technical inefficiency. the mean technical efficiency (te) is computed and it is 71 percent for both models. hypotheses have also been tested by using likelihood-ratio (lr) test statistic. the null hypothesis, there is no inefficiency is rejected at the 1% level of significance and establishes the presence of inefficiency effects and they are stochastic. in addition, the null hypothesis that the inefficiency effects are not present in the model (ho: µ= γ = 0), is also rejected at the same level of significance. thus, a significant part of the variability in production among farms has been explained by the existing differences in the level of technical inefficiency. technical efficiency has been computed for each farm. figure 1 shows a histogram of predicted technical efficiencies. the minimum estimated efficiency is 26.45 percent, and the mean is 71.01 percent with a standard deviation of 18.04 percent. this suggests that, on an average, about 29 percent of shrimp yield is lost because of inefficiency and in the short run; there is a scope for increasing shrimp production by 29 percent by improving socio-economic factors. table 3. hypothesis tests null hypothesis lr test statistic (χ2) d.f. p-value (prob>χ2) decision choice of functional form: cobb–douglas versus translog model (h0: βjk = 0 for all jk) 62.13 21 0.030 reject no inefficiencies present in the model (h0: µ = γ =0) 87.12 3 0.000 reject no inefficiency effects 51.05 12 0.000 reject table 2 shows that farm size increases farmers’ efficiency, but the coefficient of (farm size)2 confirms that very large farm size negatively affects the efficiency. so, how much land farmers are able to manage efficiently. hoque (1988) found that farm size between 7 and 12 acres is the most efficient for bangladesh agriculture. in the same line, five piece-wise regressions for five ranges of farm size have been considered and the results are presented in table 4. result shows that farm size and technical efficiency are 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 upto 60 61-70 71-80 81-90 91-100 % of technical efficiency % o f f ar m er s figure 1. frequency distribution of technical efficiency from translog model issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, 25 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, 26 positively related for less than 3 hectares and the regression coefficients are significant. this implies that technical efficiency increases with less than 3 hectares of land. on the other hand, the relationship is negative and significant for 3<5.5 hectares. table 5 also shows that average farm size for most efficient producers is 4.32 hectares. though, the relationship is negative after 3 hectares of size, it sounds that optimum farm size may be found around 5 hectares. when all the farms are considered together, the relationship is positive but insignificant. thus, piece-wise regressions give better indication about the relationship between farm size and technical efficiency. it has also been found that rich people are taking land in terms of lease from the absentee land owners and from those who cannot produce shrimp due to conflict with neighbors. increasing the amount of land is a matter of reputation for them. there is competition among rich farmers, to be the owner of the highest amount of land rather than to maximise productivity or efficiency. therefore, very large farmers are rarely capable to manage their farm. non-farm income is a very critical issue in farming. increased non farm income may reduce financial constraints, particularly for resource-poor households by enabling them to apply inputs in time; thereby increase productivity as well as efficiency. it is clear from figure 2 that with the increase of non farm income share, small farmers’ efficiency increases but medium and large farmers´ efficiency decreases. as small farmers’ land-man ratio is very less compared to other categories (table 6), it seems, if some additional labors engage in non farm sector, production would be same. so, in that sense, farmers having more land should be attentive in farming. since large farmers have a shortage of labor, additional small farm labors could be hired. 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 <60 60 <70 70 <80 >80 efficiency % io f s hr im p in co m e small medium large figure 2. percentage of shrimp income to total income for different farmers table 4. socio-economic characteristics on the basis of different levels of technical efficiency level of te different socio economic characteristics mean education (years) training (yes) proportion of shrimp income proportion of family labor owner operato r (%) average farm size (hac) < 60 11 38.2 0.38 0.44 38 11.32 60-< 70 7 70.5 0.57 0.42 53 4.26 70< 80 8 58.8 0.77 0.53 58 6.94 80< 90 8 79.6 0.79 0.53 73 3.55 90-100 8 85.7 0.76 0.54 100 4.32 source: authors’ calculation based on field survey data, 2008. american j. agril. sc. engr. tech. 27 table 5. regression results: farm size is independent and te is dependent variable farm size (hectare) reg. coeff. (std. error) r2 <1 ha. 0.53** (0.24) 0.68 1< 3 0.29* (0.23) 0.53 3<5.5 -0.13 (0.08) 0.43 >5.5 ha. -0.04 (0.15) 0.28 all farms 0.008 (0.02) 0.23 source: authors’ calculation figures in the parentheses indicate standard error table 6. average land-man ratio of different farmers types of farmers small medium large land man ratio (ha.) 0.108 0.355 4.442 source: authors calculation based on field survey data, 2008. the positive coefficient of education reveals that efficiency decreases with the increase of farmers´ level of education. in the context of bangladeshi culture and values, agricultural activities are reserved for the illiterate people; higher educated persons don’t want to be farmers. when farmers are more educated, they start to ignore farming responsibilities. table 4 shows that efficiency decreases after secondary level of education which could be explained by the education system of bangladesh. after secondary level of education, education becomes specialized and there remain very little scope to learn about farming. so, education system should be farming oriented and social values needs to be changed. various studies have found a positive connection (like ali and flinn, 1989), while several others have reported no statistically significant relationship between these two variables (bravo-ureta and evenson 1994; kalirajan 1984), and haller (1972) found a negative relationship for education on agricultural productivity (phillips, 1987). coefficient of training is negative which means that trained farmers are more efficient than non-trained farmers. so, it could be said that improvement in farmer's managerial ability is a key factor for sustainable operation, which can be improved by providing adequate training. conclusion and policy implications in this study, the translog specification was found more appropriate than the cobb-douglas for the data being analyzed. the result shows 29 percent technical inefficiency exists which can be attained by the efficient use of existing inputs; without any additional cost to the farmers. such detailed information has important implications for formulating agricultural policy. based upon the analytical result, this study suggests that around 5 hectares could be an optimum farm size for shrimp farming which is not a small amount in bangladesh perspective. the present study bears an important message that there is ample opportunity to redistribute land from those having more than 5 hectares to those having less. for increasing efficiency, large landholdings could be discouraged through policy instruments. for instance, progressive rate of land tax could be charged for farmers having more land. this measure will have some monitoring and enforcement costs, but may also raise substantial revenues that can be used to finance issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, iss. 1, page: 20-29, 28 technological improvements that would reduce natural resource degradation normally induced by shrimp cultivation. as distance from pond to canal negatively affects farmer’s efficiency, the study recommends that narrow sub canals could be constructed for the tail end farmers; the proposal should be carefully examined focusing on the costs; and effects on the efficiency and production of farmers. farmers could also be socially organized for collective water management. if farmers get timely supply of water, they will be able to produce shrimp along with one season rice and fresh water fish. poor performance of farmers in shrimp farming with increased non-farm income indirectly implies that farming is becoming a secondary occupation and is incapable of providing sufficient returns from farming activities. off farm income could be helpful for farming because it provides liquidity for agricultural expenditures and long-term investments; but if farmers operate farming as secondary occupation, then off-farm income reduces efficiency. however, the risk of disease epidemic in shrimp pushes small and medium farmers to engage in non farm income-earning activities. this study recommends that large farmers should be attentive in farming and they could hire additional labors from small farms. shrimp farming is relatively new occupation for the farmers and they have little formal knowledge on framing technology. therefore, this study recommends training for shrimp farmers. after completion of secondary level of education, the members of farm family become eligible to receive training. to encourage training, monetary incentives could be introduced for the trainees. references aigner, d.j., lovell, c.a.k. and schmidt, p. 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research is authentication which is the determination of whether a user should be allowed access to a given system or resource. in this respect, authentication is a process by which a system verifies the identity of a user. authentication may also be generalized by saying that “to authenticate” means “to authorize”. users tend to pick passwords that can be easily guessed, on the other hand, if a password is hard to guess, then it is often hard to remember. to address this problem some researchers have developed authentication methods that use pictures as passwords, known as graphical passwords. graphical passwords are a proposed alternative to text passwords that have been shown to have good usability and security properties that use images for login, and leverage the picture superiority effect for good usability and memorability. categories of graphical passwords have been distinguished on the basis of different kinds of memory retrieval (recall, cued-recall, and recognition). though there are several kinds of graphical password, but we have choose to implement the cued click based due to efficient and more secured, cued click points is a click-based graphical password scheme, users click on one point per image for a sequence of images. the next image is based on the previous clickpoint. performance was very good in terms of speed, accuracy, and number of errors. graphical passwords may offer better security than text-based passwords because many people, in an attempt to memorize text-based passwords, use plain words rather than the recommended jumble of characters. key word: cued click points, graphical passwords and authentication. 1 lecturer, department of computer science & information technology, hstu, dinajpur, bangladesh,hasi.cse3@gmail.com 2 assistant professor, department of computer science & information technology, bsmrau, gazipur, bangladesh 3 associate professor, department of computer science & information technology, bsmrau, gazipur, bangladesh 4 department of computer science & information technology, hstu, dinajpur, bangladesh 10issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction user authorization includes the problems of security and usability. it is not acceptable if both are essential and important. the issue is proved under the information-based authorized methods. graphical passwords are very important and safe than common text passwords since they tackle the capability of the man to identify and recall the pictures. under this theory, we studied under the field of information-based on usability and security. text-based password is the series of features which has gain permission to the file, pc, or application. the passwords are simple and cheap to execute and it is known to many users. the brains can function and save great quantity of graphical data since human beings live and communicate within atmosphere and the sense of view is predominant for many actions. this graphical information shows numerous bytes of data and hence to give great password spaces. hence, graphical password methods give the method to create passwords of human-friendly to enhance the stage of safety. the use of passwords is known to be ancient. sentries would challenge those wishing to enter an area or approaching it to supply a password or watchword, and would only allow a person or group to pass if they knew the password. in modern times, user names and passwords are commonly used by people during a log in process that controls access to protected computer operating systems, mobile phones, cable tv decoders, automated teller machines (atms), etc. authentication is the act of confirming the truth of an attribute of a datum or entity. this might involve confirming the identity of a person or software program, tracing the origins of an artifact, or ensuring that a product is what it’s packaging and labeling claims to be. authentication often involves verifying the validity of at least one form of identification (f.alsulaiman and a.el saddik, 2006).authentication is the process of determining whether someone or something is, in fact, who or what it is declared to be. in private and public computer networks (including the internet), authentication is commonly done through the use of login password (k. renaud, 2005). authentication has become mere important for an organization to provide an accurate and reliable means of authorization (khan 2007). the authentication methods can be divided into three major parts, such as  token based techniques.  biometric based techniques.  knowledge based techniques. humans have exceptional ability to recognize images previously seen, even if those images were viewed very briefly. several recognition-based graphical password schemes have been 11issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology proposed in recent years (s. akula et ali, 2004). sobrado and birget developed a graphical password technique that deals with the shouldersurfing problem (l.sobrado and j.-c. birget,2002). in the first scheme, the system will display a number of pass-objects (pre selected by user) among many other objects in recall-based techniques, a user is asked to reproduce something that he or she created or selected earlier during the registration stage. graphical passwords requiring pure recall are most similar to text passwords because users must remember their password and reproduce it without any cues from the system (i. jeremyn et al, 1999). this is a difficult memory task and users sometimes devise ways of using the interface as a cue even though it is not intended as such. in draw-a-secret das (g. h. bower et al, 1975), users draw their password on a 2d grid using a stylus or mouse (see figure: 2.3). the password is composed of the coordinates of the grid cells that the user passes through while drawing. a drawing can consist of one continuous pen stroke or several strokes. to log in, users repeat the same path through the grid cells. the theoretical password space is determined by the coarseness of the underlying 2d grid and the complexity of the images. a coarser grid helps with usability, while a finer grid increases the size of the password space. figure 2.3: sample draw-a-secret password the study has been carried out to achieve the following objectives: now a day we are using many system, whether it is computer based or web based. the security of the system is the main fact. for the security of the system we are facing the password system. the main objectives of my proposed system is given below  the objective of the proposed system is to implement of a cued click points graphical password.  design and develop a password system that is easy to guess.  to design a system that is acceptable to all type of users, although he/she is an illiterate.  to design a system that is implemented as a password system in both desktop and web.  to design a system that is easy to maintain. 12issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology background study i. background of the text password despite the large number of options for authentication, text passwords remain the most common choice (k. renaud, 2005) for several reasons. text passwords are easy and inexpensive to implement, and are familiar to most users. and finally, passwords are portable since users simply have to recall them, as opposed to tokens which must be carried. however, text passwords also have a number of the inadequacies from both security and usability viewpoints, such as being difficult to remember and being predictable if user-choice is allowed (d. klein, 1990). ii. background of the graphical password here we discuss some graphical password systems based on recognition or cued recall of images. most existing systems are based on recognition. the best known of these systems are pass faces. to create a password, the user chose four images of human faces from a portfolio of faces. to log in the user saw a grid of nine faces, which included one face previously chosen by the user and eight decoy faces. the user had to click anywhere on the known face. this procedure was repeated with different target and decoy faces, for a total of four rounds. if the user chose all four correct faces, he or she successfully logged in. data from this study suggest that pass faces are more memorable than alphanumeric passwords. on the other hand, passwords based on image recognition have a serious disadvantage. only a small number of faces can be displayed on each screen, e.g., in pass faces nine faces. an attacker has a 1-in-9 chance of guessing this pass face. consequently, the login process requires repetitive rounds of face recognition. if four rounds are used the chance of guessing the password is (1/9)4 = 1.5 х 10-4. with a few thousand random guesses an attacker would be likely to find the password. to increase security similar to that of 8-character alphanumeric password, 15 or 16 rounds would be required. this could be slow and annoying to the user (d. davis et al, august 2004). 13issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology in pass points, a password consists of a sequence of five click-points on a given image. users may select any pixels in the image as click-points for their password. to log in, they repeat the sequence of clicks in the correct order, within a system-defined tolerance square of the original click-points (k.p. yee, 2004). the usability and security of this scheme was evaluated by the original authors (s.chiasson,july 2007) and subsequently by others. it was found that although relatively usable, security concerns remain. the primary security problem is hotspots: different users tend to select similar click-points as part of their passwords. attackers who gain knowledge of these hotspots through harvesting sample passwords or through automated image processing techniques can build attack dictionaries and more successfully guess pass points passwords (thorpe, j. and van oorschot, 2007). blonder-style passwords are based on cued recall. a user clicks on several previously chosen locations in a single image to log in. as implemented by pass logix corporation (boroditsky, 2002), the user chooses several predefined regions in an image as his or her password. to log in the user has to click on the same regions. the problem with this scheme is that the number of predefined regions is small, perhaps a few dozens in a picture. the password may have to be up to 12 clicks for adequate security, again tedious for the user. another problem of this system is the need for the predefined regions to be readily identifiable. in effect, this requires artificial, cartoon-like images rather than complex, real-world scenes. proposed system we propose and examine the usability and security of cued click points (ccp), a cued-recall graphical password technique. users click on one point per image for a sequence of images. the next image is based on the previous click-point. we present the results of an initial user study which revealed positive results. performance was very good in terms of speed, accuracy, and number of errors. 1) users preferred ccp to pass points (wiedenbecketal,2005), saying that selecting and remembering only one point per image was easier, and that seeing each image triggered their memory of where the corresponding point was located. we also suggest that ccp provides greater security than pass points because the number of images increases the workload for attackers or a sequence of images. the next image displayed is based on the previous click-point so users receive immediate implicit feedback as to whether they are on the correct path when logging in. ccp offers both improved usability and security. requirement specification cued click based password scheme 14issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology in the cued click based graphical password, the image is displayed on the screen by the system. the image is not secret and has no role other than helping the user remember the click points. any pixel in the image is a candidate for a click point.to log in, the user has to click again closely to the chosen points, in the given sequence. since it is almost impossible for human users to click repeatedly on exactly the exact point, the system allows for an error tolerance r in the click locations (e.g., a disk with radius r = 7 or 10 pixels). this is done by quantizing (discretizing) the click locations, using three different square grids, as described in [12]. each grid has width 6r between grid lines (horizontal or vertical).each one of the three grids is staggered with respect to the previous grid by a distance 2r vertically and a distance 2r horizontally;(see figure: 2. 1) if there were only one quantization grid then a selected click point could be close to a grid line and small variations in the user's clicking could lead to a click in a different grid square, thus leading to the wrong password. on the other hand, one can prove that with the three staggered grids every point in a two-dimensional image is at distance at least r from the grid lines of at least one of the three grids; we say that the point is safe" in that grid. figure 2.1: three staggered grids. the simultaneous use of multiple grids makes the click points robust" against the inevitable small uncertainties in the clicking; hence, this form of discretization is called robust discretization", or “robust quantization". click positions are mapped into grid squares. a sequence of click points is represented by a sequence of grids together with a sequence of grid squares. for secure storage of passwords by the system, a function is applied to the sequence of grid squares. an important feature of the click points system is that the underlying images for a password are not restricted to simple comics-like drawings. complex real-world images can be used; users can even install their own images. natural images help users remember complex passwords better. i. functional requirements the various functional requirements of this system are the following: 15issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology  selection of first image during registration, database module for maintaining the framework  pre-processing modules for different areas, customizable iii. user interface requirements to achieve the objectives and benefits expected from the computer based system, it is essential for people who will be involved to be confident of their role in the new system. this involves them in understanding the overall system. as the system becomes more complex the need for education and training is more and more important. education of the user should really have taken place much earlier in the project when they were being involved in the investigation and design work. once the staff has been trained the system can be tested. iv. performance requirements considering the interactive nature of the task the system must have the following characters.  minimum response time ,efficient cpu utilization, less memory space ,high reliability ,high flexibility ,user friendly v. other nonfunctional requirements nonfunctional requirements define system properties and constraints it arises through user needs, because of budget constraints or organizational policies, or due to the external factors such as safety regulations, privacy registration and so on. nonfunctional requirements are:  security ,reliability, maintainability ,portability ,extensibility ,reusability, application affinity/compatibility resource utilization system design and method a. general overview of system design the purpose of system design is to create a technical solution that serves both the user and the admin. the system should be designed in such a way that is very flexible to use for both the administrator and the user. the preparation of the environment needed to build the system, the testing of the system and the migration and the preparation of the data that will ultimately be used by the system are equally important. in addition to designing the technical solution, system design is the time to initiate focused planning efforts for both the testing and data preparation activities. both the admin section and the user section are designed in such a way that both parties enjoy the facilities of the application. b. modular design of cued click points authentication the whole system is divided into two parts i.e. the user and the admin section. that is why the modular design of the system is also divided into two modular diagrams, one for admin and another for naive user. both modules are shown below 16issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology figure 2.2: module diagram for user use case diagram the use case diagram consists of the following criteria mentioned below. it should be the scenario that describes the interaction between a user and the system and it displays the relationship among actors and use cases. there are two components in a use case diagram that helps understand the use case diagram. those are, actor and use-case an actor in a use-case diagram represents a user using the system. on the other hand, a use-case represents the set of acts that a user might perform while using the system. figure 2.4: symbol of actor and use-case diagram. the use-case diagram for the admin displays the interaction between the admin and the system. figure: 2.5 show the use case diagram for admin. figure 2.5: use case diagram for admin figure 2.3: module diagram for admin 17issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the use-case diagram for the naïve user displays the interaction between the user and the system. figure: 2.6 show the use case diagram for the naive user. figure 2.6: use case diagram for naive user. c. module design the coding would allow any one particular module to be corrected or improved without making any significant change to any other module. the both software and hardware implementation of the system is given below: software module implementation the designed system was implemented using visual studio 2010 in .net framework, text file is used to store the information. the different modules of the system are: user interface, admin registration process, picture selection process, password selection process. user interface/welcome page the screen shots of the welcome page are below figure 2.7: the screen shots of the welcome page. the page contains admin button, about, and exit buttons. the admin button shows the admin login form. about button shows information about the author, exit button, exit the system. 18issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology admin registration form the admin registration form is given below: figure 2.8: admin registration form. the form takes two information, the uses name and password. also here is an option the change password that is used to change the admin password, another button is close that is used to close the login form. picture browsing and password selection form the screen shout of picture browsing and password selection form are given below. figure 2.9: the screen shots of picture browsing and password selection. 19issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the upload button upload the image into image box, the set button sets the password into click position of the image in the image box. the see password shows the click position co-ordinates, and show the password hints into the password hints text box. results and discussions in this research i have practically implemented the cued click point graphical passwords which offer better security than text-based passwords and give the more accurate result. the dictionary search can often hit on a password and allow a hacker to gain entry into a system in seconds. so a series of selectable images is used on successive screen pages, and hence increase its security. graphical passwords are an alternative to textual alphanumeric password. it satisfies both conflicting requirements i.e. it is easy to remember & it is hard to guess. by the solution of the shoulder surfing problem, it becomes more secure & easier password scheme. by implementing other special geometric configurations like triangle & movable frame, one can achieve more security.due to this vulnerability to shoulder surfing, it would appear that graphical passwords could never be used in environments where view of the screen is not exclusive to the person logging in. however, we have found that by applying the concept of challenge response it is possible to create schemes that counter the shoulder surfing problem. it is more difficult to break graphical passwords using the traditional attack methods such as: we have used less number of series images, if there are many images on each page, a hacker must try every possible combination at random. if there are 100 images on each of the 8 pages in an 8-image password, there are 1008, or 10 quadrillion (10,000,000,000,000,000), possible combinations that could form the graphical password! if the system has a built-in delay of only 0.1 second following the selection of each image until the presentation of the next page, it would take (on average) millions of years to break into the system by hitting it with random image sequences. conclusion in this paper, it first introduced some typical graphical passwords authentication schemes. then under its estimate criterions, the security analysis of graphical passwords was given. a comparison of current typical graphical password techniques is presented. the preliminary analysis suggests that it is more difficult to break cued click points graphical passwords using the traditional attack methods. although our system aims to reduce the problems with existing graphical based password schemes but it has also some limitations and issues like the other entire graphical based password 20issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology references f. alsulaiman.a.s. 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(july 2007), “modeling user choice in the passpoints graphical password scheme”, symposium on usable privacy and security 2007. usa :pittsburgh, pennsylvania,. acm. 20-28. l.sobrado and j.-c. birget(. 2002) "graphical passwords”, the rutgers scholar, an electronic bulletin for undergraduate research, 4(1). s. wiedenbeck, j. waters, j. c. birget (2005.), a. brodskiy, and n. memon, "authentication using graphical passwords: effects of tolerance and image choice," in symposium on usable privacy and security (soups). pittsburgh:carnegie-mellon university. d. nali and j. thorpe (may 2004), "analyzing user choice in graphical passwords," technical report, school of information technology and engineering, canada: university of ottawa. 21issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology instructions for authors: the article must type in microsoft word and times new roman font. full paper should not exceed 10 pages including figure, graph, and reference in a4 size document. text format: language: standard english font: times new roman text functions manuscript style font size alignment title (all capital) bold 12 central author & co-authors bold 11 central address for correspondence normal 11 left abstract heading bold 12 central abstract & main texts (1.5 line space) normal 11 justify section heading bold 12 left subsection heading bold 11 left main text normal 11 justify 1) text flow title: maximum 25 words author & co-author: please write the full name of all authors and type the address of the author (s) in footnote abstract: maximum 300 words, 1.5 line spacing author should mention the problem statement, methodology, major findings/contribution of the article. key words: maximum five (5) key words main text: maximum 10 pages including abstract, graph, picture, and reference acknowledgement: should not exceed 100 words reference: the ajaset strictly follows the apa (american psychological association) citation style. here are the details of apa citation style: general form of journal: 22issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology author, a. a., author, b. b., & author, c. c. (year). title of article, title of journal, xx(xx), xxx-xxx. one author turner, r. a. (2007). coaching and consulting in multicultural contexts. consulting psychology journal: practice and research, 59(4), 241-243. two to six authors [list all authors] brainerd, c. j., reyna, v. f., wright, r., & mojardin, a. h. (2003). recollection rejection: false-memory editing in children and adults. psychological review, 110(4), 762-784. more than six authors [list the first six authors, then use et al.] wolchik, s. a., west, s. g., sandler, i. n., tein, j., coatsworth, d., lengua, l., et al. (2000). an experimental evaluation of theorybased mother and mother-child programs for children of divorce. journal of consulting and clinical psychology, 68(5), 843-856. online journals, magazines, newspapers: article from e-journal website ray, o. (2004). how the mind hurts and heals the body. american psychologist 59, 29-40. retrieved from http://www.apa.org/journals/releases /amp59129.pdf lodewijkx, h. f. m. (2001, may 23). individual-group continuity in cooperation and competition under varying communication conditions. current issues in social psychology, 6(12), 166-182. retrieved from http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.6.12.htm note: the full url (or web address) is given with eournal websites (not from databases). there is no period at the end of a url. break a long url before punctuation. right click on the url and remove the hyperlink to eliminate the blue type and underline. online report naacp (2005, april 29). naacp supports congressional fight to end predatory lending. retrieved from http://www.naacp.org/inc//docs/washington/109/109_aa2005-04-28.pdf online report with no author identified and no date gvu's 10th www user survey. (n.d.). retrieved august 19, 2005, from http://www.cc.gatech.edu/user_surveys/survey-1998-10/ magazine article 23issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ http://www.apa.org/ http://www.uiowa.edu/~grpproc/crisp/crisp.6.12.htm http://www.naacp.org/inc/ http://www.cc.gatech.edu/user_surveys/survey-1998-10/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology henry, w. a., iii. (1990, april 9). beyond the melting pot. time, 135, 28-31. newspaper article with no author and discontinuous pages generic prozac debuts. (2001, august 3). the washington post, pp. e1, e4. books, reports, etc. in print format general form: author, a. a. (year). title of work. location: publisher. one author nagel, p. c. (1992). the lees of virginia: seven generations of an american family. new york: oxford university press. corporate author with an edition and published by the corporate author american psychiatric association (1994). diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (4th ed.). washington, dc: author. anonymous author guidelines and application form for directors, 1990 summer seminar for school teachers. (1988). washington, dc: national endowment for the humanities. chapter in a book burghardt, g. m. (1984). on the origins of play. in p. k. smith (ed.), play in animals and humans (pp. 5-42). oxford, england: basil blackwell. citing secondary sources: when citing in the text a work discussed in a secondary source, give both the primary and the secondary sources. in the example below, the study by seidenberg and mcclelland was mentioned in an article by coltheart, curtis, atkins, & haller. seidenberg and mcclelland’s study (1989, as cited in coltheart, curtis, atkins, & haller, (1993) in the reference list, you would cite the secondary source that you have read, not the original study. 24issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com http://www.ajaset.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology technologies intervention to reduce rice post harvest loses in bangladesh mashrat jahan1*, atiar rohman molla2, jaba rani sarker3 abstract the use of technologies in the reduction of post-harvest losses of rice at farm level is advocated in this paper. the research discusses the conditions under which producers can benefit (e.g, minimizing the losses, ensuring quality, reducing gender inequality, time & labor saving etc) from technological innovations and to identify the gaps and opportunities to address the post-harvest based technology needs in the improvement of post-harvest loses and reducing the drudgery. in post-harvest activities the quality of the harvested crop, the degree of losses incurred and the efficiency of the operations and hence, overall costs are affected by factors related to the respondent’s age, education, family size, occupation, cropping area, institutional access to credit, the way of handling by male & female and the technology used. purposive sampling technique was used to obtain data from 270 bangladeshi rice farmers. to estimate the casual impact of technology adoption propensity score matching methods and probit model is utilized to assess the results robustness that estimate the true welfare effect of technology adoption by controlling for the role on production and adoption decisions. results show that adoption of improved technology gives higher returns to the farmers (5.62%) than the traditional farmers, though the former is more capital intensive than the latter. quantity of operated area and access to credit are the two most important factors that contribute to adoption. with increasing dependency ratio and cost of mechanical power, farmers tend to adopt less. the overall result from this paper generally confirms the potential direct role of post-harvest technology adoption on improving rural household welfare, as higher production tends to higher incomes. keyword: rice; technologies adoption; postharvest loss and probitmodel. 1department of agricultural economics, faculty of agricultural economics and rural development, bangabandhu sheikh mujiburrahman agricultural university, gazipur, bangladesh.. email: mjahan.aec@bsmrau.edu.bd; 2departments of agricultural economics, faculty of agricultural economics and rural sociology, bangladesh agricultural university, mymensingh, bangladesh. 3department of agricultural economics, faculty of agricultural economics and rural development, bangabandhusheikh mujiburrahman agricultural university, gazipur, bangladesh. *corresponding author: mashrat jahan; email: mjahan.aec@bsmrau.edu.bd 25issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction agricultural products and commodities that produced on the farm levels have to undergo a series of operations such as harvesting, threshing, winnowing, drying, bagging, transportation, storage, processing, marketing and exchange before they reach the final consumer, and there are considerable losses in crop output at all these stages. a recent estimate by the bangladesh agricultural research institute (bari) showed that the total preventable post-harvest losses of food grains at 12-15 percent of the total production or about 4.155.19 million metric tons (mmt). in a country where 26 percent of the population is undernourished, post-harvest losses of 4-5 mmt annually is a substantial avoidable waste. according to a fao and apo study (2006), post-harvest losses of food grains in bangladesh are 15 percent of the total production. for the system as a whole, such losses have been worked out to be 5.19 mmt of food grains annually, which included 0.32 mmt of wheat and 4.87 mmt of rice. with an average per capita consumption of about 453 gm/day of food grains, these losses would be enough to feed about 31.72 million people, i.e. about 20 percent of the entire population of bangladesh for about one year. thus, the post-harvest losses have impact at both the micro and macro levels of the economy. introduction of modern and scientific power operated post-harvest equipment from harvesting to storage will minimize the enormous post-harvest losses and will ensure quality of the product. the technologies were also helping to create an opportunity for the rural people and to utilize their women recourses into diversified purposes during this stipulated working period. it also reduces women working period and increases the opportunities to involve themselves into other income generating activities. by using these technologies they also released fromheavy working pressure. there are some studies previously undertaken about adoption of improved technologies in case of rice production or selection of crop. rahman (2008) found that along with availability of irrigation facilities, several other factors like farmers’ education, farming experience, farm asset ownership, infrastructure and non-agricultural income influence bangladeshi farmers’ choices about a crop. for promoting crop diversification, the literature argued for importance of investing in farmers’ education and rural infrastructure development including irrigation. it also emphasized necessities of land reform policies and tenurial reforms. mottaleb, mohanty and nelson (2014) found that in bangladesh land characteristics, credit facilities and physical infrastructure (such as roads, irrigation facilities) and the availability of government-approved seed dealers, significantly influence the adoption of hybrid and modern rice varieties and land allocation to these varieties. joshi and pandy (2006) found that nepali farmers’ perceptions about varietal characteristics such as pest resistance, drought tolerance and suitability for making special products play a key role in explaining their adoption behaviour. they also found that the farm and farmer specific variables such as education, experience, and 26issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology availability of extension services have significant effects on improved variety adoption. results from other studies do not differ much from these but they use different farm-specific socio-economic and community level factors to explain differences in adoption under the same macroeconomic structure (adesina and zinnah, 1993; adesina and baidu-forson, 1995; nkamleu and adesina, 2000; shiyaniet al., 2002). keeping inmind the scarcity of research on this area, this study aims to determine the factors that influence the improved technology adoption. increased farm level adoptionwill increase farm production and hence profit. ultimately farmers enjoy better incomeand livelihood status. at the macro level, the impact will be less post-harvest loss. therefore, the following objectives may arise. 1) to evaluate the post-harvest losses of farm productivity and 2) to identify the factors affecting the adoption of post-harvest technologies on technology receiver and technology nonreceiver farmer’s. hypothesis of the study in order to fulfill the research objectives of the study, the following null hypotheses would be tested. a. there are no options and means for increasing farm productivity and also reducing losses; and, b. there is no impact of post-harvest technologies on technology receiver and non-receiver farmers. 27issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology methodology the post-harvest technological impact were observed at farm level in aman rice by using survey data, collected randomly from 270 rice growing households for the year 2013 covering five districts 1) rangpur, 2) nilphamari, 3) khulna, 4) jessore& 5) satkhira. a participatory methodology was followed, to elicit information about post-harvest processes followed in the research locations. two methods named key informants interview (kii) and focus group discussion (fgd) were followed for the survey of post-harvest technologies and constraints faced by women. there were two dimensions of data available for analysis: (i) farmer’s who have received post-harvest related technologies, i.e., technology receiver and (ii) farmer’s who didn’t receive any post-harvest related technologies, i.e., technology non-receiver. purposive sampling procedure was followedto select the respondents of the research locations.sampling design and distribution of sampled respondents in the study sites are presented in the following table. table1: sampling frame of the study area region districts upazilla villages technology receiver technology non receiver total male female male female rangpur nilphamari joldhaka uttar beruband 8 7 8 7 30 nilphamarisadar laxmichap 8 7 8 7 30 rangpur rangpursadar muktarpara 8 7 8 7 30 khulna satkhira satkhirasadar perkukrali 8 7 8 7 30 khulna botiagattha titukhali 8 7 8 7 30 dhumaria baratia 8 7 8 7 30 jessore jessore monirampur chandipur 8 7 8 7 30 bagherpara bakri 8 7 8 7 30 jessoresadar abdulpur 8 7 8 7 30 all 72 63 72 63 270 analytical technique averages and percentages were used to compute the post-harvest losses. information about postharvest losses was obtained from the farmers during following operations: (i) harvesting, (ii) threshing, (iii) parboiling, (iv) drying and (v) storage. functional analysis was carried out to examine the factors affecting for the adoption of post-harvest technologies at farm level. 28issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology post-harvest loss: crop production undergoes a series of operations such as harvesting, threshing, drying, transportation, storage before reaching the consumer, and there are sizable losses in crop output at all these stages. the data collected from the farmers included general information about the cultivation of food crops, methods of harvesting, threshing, parboiling, drying and storage system and losses during post-harvest operations. post-harvest loss is the loss of dry matter during post-harvest operations. the post-harvest loss for any operation computed as: post harvest loss initial weight final weight initial weight propensity score matching (psm) methods:the propensity score matching method is one of the non-parametric estimation techniques helps in comparing the observed outcomes of technology adopters with the outcomes of counterfactual non-adopters (heckman et al., 1998). the following function was specified in the present study: =e[e( y1i/ gi=1,p(x))-e( y2i/ gi=0,p(x))] here,gidenotes a dummy variable such thatgi=1 if the ith individual adopt improved technology and gi=0 otherwise. similarly let y1i and y2i denote potential observed welfare outcomes for adopter and non-adopter units respectively. the propensity score is a continuous variable and there is no way to get adopter with the same score as its counterfactual(s). thus, estimation of the propensity score is not sufficient to compute the average treatment effect given by equation. we need to search for counterfactual(s) that matches with each adopter depending on its propensity score. we use the nearest-neighbor matching method to pick comparison groups. this method could use a single nearest-neighbor or multiple nearest-neighbors with the closest propensity score to the corresponding adopter unit. the method could also be applied with or without replacement where the former allows a given non-adopter to match with more than one adopter (becker and ichino, 2002; dehejia and wahba, 2002). to check the robustness of our result, the impact estimate calculated using the nearest neighbor matching method is compared to the estimates of kernel matching method. the observed outcome variables, used as a proxy for the welfare of smallholder farmers, in this paper, are crop income and household consumption expenditure per adult equivalent. probitregression model: the probit regression model can be used to compare the expected rice production of the farm households that adopted (a) with respect to the farm households that did not adopt (b), and to investigate the expected rice production in the counterfactual hypothetical cases (c) that the adopted farm households did not adopt, and (d) that the non-adopters farm households adopted. the conditional expectations for the outcome variables in the four cases are presented in the following table and defined as follows. 29issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 2:conditional expectations, treatment and heterogeneity effects sub-samples decisions stage treatment effectto adopt not to adopt log net production farm households who adopted (a)e(y1i/gi=1) (c)e(y2i/gi=1) tt farm households who did not adopted (d)e(y1i/gi=0) (b)e(y1i/gi=0) tu heterogeneity effects bh1 bh2 th notes: (a) and (b) represent observed expected rice production; (c) and (d) represent counterfactual expected rice production. where, ai = 1 if farm households adopted improved agricultural technologies: ai = 0 if farm households did not adopt: y1i = rice production if the farm households adopted y2i = rice production if the farm households did not adopt tt = the effect of the treatment (i.e. improved technologies) on the treated ( i.e., farm households that adopted); tu = the effect of the treatment (i.e. improved technologies) on the untreated ( i.e., farm households that did not adopt); bh = the effect of base heterogeneity for farm households that adopted (i = 1), and did not adopt (i = 2); th = (tt-tu), i.e., transitional heterogeneity results and discussion in bangladesh rice post-harvest losses are a function of complex interactions between men and women farmers on one side and the technologies they employ, on the other. in this regard, it may be concluded that the only missing link in rice post–harvest loss reduction in all phases in bangladesh is the availability and non-accessibility of appropriate technologies. the post-harvest losses of different food items especially rice, is a great concern to us as rice is our main food. post-harvest losses due to inadequate facilities of harvesting to storage must be given due importance to ensure the highest production for our growing population both at macro and micro levels. post-harvest loss table 3shows post-harvest losses at different regions occurred at aman season. the results shows that at jessore& khulna loss incurred by technology user are lower than the non-user which mean 30issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology technology have a positive impact on reducing post-harvest losses. but the picture at rangpur shows different. here technology user losses more than non-user. so it can be concluded that technology failed to provide positive impact at rangpur as the farmers of rangpur adopt technologies only at the time of storage. the outcome of the research study shows that the highest loss occurred during harvesting among all post-harvest handling, which is highest at rangpur (4.29%), followed by khulna (2.63%) and jessore (2.37%). at the time of manual harvesting rice grain losses is higher because of shedding of grains. only technology can be a great solution to this problem. technology like riper is the first choice for the smallholders in the study areas for its easily handling, & less time consuming to harvest characteristics. if more training or demonstration on different harvester can be placed, females along with males will feel interest to apply it. table 3: amount loss of different ph activities post harvest loss in kg per ha of aman rice activities jesssore khulna rangpur t ec hn ol og y re ce iv er t ec hn ol og y no n re ce iv er a ll t ec hn ol og y re ce iv er t ec hn ol og y no n re ce iv er a ll t ec hn ol og y re ce iv er t ec hn ol og y no n re ce iv er a ll harvesting 17.90 (2.05) 23.37 (2.69) 20.64 (2.37) 18.73 (2.38) 28.71 (2.89) 23.72 (2.63) 85.02 (4.18) 38.61 (4.40) 61.82 (4.29) threshing 5.22 (0.98) 8.10 (1.01) 6.66 (0.99) 9.94 (1.29) 7.92 (1.15) 8.93 (1.22) 58.36 (2.68) 28.06 (3.33) 43.21 (3.00) parboiling 2.92 (1.09) 3.33 (1.15) 3.12 (1.12) 4.48 (2.12) 1.44 (0.94) 2.96 (1.55) 3.37 (1.91) 1.63 (2.19) 2.50 (2.05) drying 5.36 (1.68) 5.68 (1.69) 5.52 (1.69) 8.11 (1.56) 6.87 (1.76) 7.49 (1.66) 105.62 (4.85) 41.39 (4.69) 73.50 (4.77) storage 8.44 (4.44) 8.39 (4.97) 8.42 (4.71) 12.22 (6.29) 16.05 (6.76) 14.13 (6.53) 49.02 (8.18) 20.82 (8.76) 34.92 (8.47) all 39.84 (10.24) 48.87 (11.51) 44.35 (10.88) 53.48 (13.66) 60.99 (13.49) 57.23 (13.60) 301.39 (21.80) 130.51 (23.36) 215.95 (22.58) source: field survey 2013 note: figure in the parenthesis indicate percentage of loss but threshing at rangpur where manual threshing is still practicing, losses are higher (3.00%) then the south region, because of no repeat threshing was done at the time of hand threshing there were a lot of wastage. there is an observation that some grains were lost during lifting and beating the panicles on the wooden bench or on some hard piece of wood. some grains were eaten by birds and domestic fowls. parboiling loss is as usual at a minimum level. drying loss is acute at rangpur as compare to jessore& khulna. it is a very serious problem in the northern region of the country where the wet period is longer. large quantities are further spoiled by fungal attack because immediately after 31issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology parboiling because of unfavorable weather farmers keeps worried about proper drying, as irregular sun rising can creates full wastage of rice grain which in turn has no use to them. according to the previous studies highest ph loss occurred at the time of storage but this study revealed only 19.15 kg (6.57%) storage loss among all the ph activities, as because of lots of ph training and technologies based on how to store rice seed & grain is provided to the farmers efficiently by extension agents. rice post-harvest loss at rangpur (215.95 kg/ha) is much higher than jessore (44.35 kg/ha) indicating that loss reduction situation is improving at south region because of the awareness of the farmers about ph loss and because of being backward region north lag behind in reducing losses. so the situation is improving and to get ultimate results more effort should be given now to the mechanized harvesting and drying to reduce ph losses. comparison of ph technology adopter & non adopter the research study dataset contains 270 farm households and of these, about 74% are adopters i.e. used at least one of the improved post-harvest technologies. table 4 presents the t-test and chi-square comparison of means of selected variables by adoption status for the surveyed households. the analysis shows average age of sample household head is about 45.5 years and the difference is statistically significant. 5% household of adaptor and 1% from non-adaptor categories are female headed. no significant difference is observed in the gender & education of the household head and also in the family size which suggests these variables might be uncorrelated with decision to adopt. the average dr is 16% having significances to adopt technologies. the adapter groups are also significantly distinguishable in terms of having earning member & average annual income. there are not so significant differences on the occupation of household head. the operated area significantly affects between adopters and non-adopters. the labor force distinguish by gender have no significant effect on the decision of adopting improve ph technologies. there are significant effects on the cost of mechanical power expressing the tendency of adopters to expend more money on technologies than that of non-adopters. access to credit and extension services have no significant effect on the decision of adopting technology but ph training to the household given has significances which is higher among adopter categories. in the subsequent part at table 7, a rigorous analytical model is estimated to verify whether these differences in mean net production per household equivalent remain unchanged after controlling for all confounding factors. to measure the impact of adoption, it is necessary to take into account the fact that individuals who adopt improved ph technologies might have achieved a higher level of rice production, even if they had not adopted. 32issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 4: descriptive summary of variables used in estimations variables ph improved technology t-statistic (chisquare) adopters (n=199) non-adopters (n=71) dependent variable net production in kg 3823 3428 -1.65* household characteristics variables age of household head (years) 48 43 -2.48*** sex of household head (1 = female) 0.05 0.01 1.43ns education of household head (years) 5.45 5.89 0.65ns family size (numbers) 4.64 4.59 -0.24ns dependency ratio (%) 12.61 19.35 3.37*** household wealth variables and farm characteristics earning members (person/household) 1.76 1.51 -2.06** annual income (tk) 125,607 100,755 -2.06** occupation of household head (1 = agriculture) 0.95 0.90 2.07ns operated area (ha) 0.25 0.54 6.13*** number of total male labor used (man-days) 32.73 29.99 -1.50 ns number of total female labor used (man-days) 65.16 59.66 -1.52ns cost of mechanical power (tk) 6867 823 -5.06*** institutional and access related variables credit received (1=yes) 0.49 0.39 1.82ns training received (1 = yes) 0.55 0.38 5.87*** extension services (1=yes) 0.50 0.55 0.56ns source: authors calculation, 2013,note: statistical significance at the 99% (***), 95% (**) and 90% (*) confidence levels and, ns= not significant. t-test and chi-square are used for continuous and categorical variables,respectively. impact of using technology on households the goal of evaluating the impact of the ph technology adoption is to measure differences in outcomes between the technology user and their counterfactual, a proxy for what outcomes would have been for this group had they not used the technology. the research study considers the effect of the ph technology adoption on the rice production of the sample farmers. the net production of rice is an important indicator of livelihood of being benefitted. the variables like income, occupation, operated area reduces the risks of vulnerability of households to disruptions in solvency because these variables are the part/ way of earning. table 5: average marginal effects and odds ratio of probit regression 33issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology variables marginal effects of coefficient household characteristics variables age of household head (years) 0.003*** sex of household head (1 =female) 0.220ns education of household head (years) 0.003* family size (numbers) -0.010ns dependency ratio (%) -0.003** household wealth variables and farm characteristics earning members (person/household) 0.040ns annual income (tk) 0.001*** occupation of household head (1 = agriculture) 0.130* operated area (ha) 0.200*** number of total male lab (man-days) -0.040ns number of total female lab (man-days) 0.020ns cost of mechanical power (tk) -0.001*** institutional and access related variables credit received (1=yes) 0.100** training received (1=yes) 0.100** extension services (1=yes) 0.010ns constant -3.50*** number of observations 270 lr chi-squared 165.5*** pseudo rsquared 0.530 log likelihood -72.810 authors calculation, 2013 lack of production is therefore both a cause and a consequence of occurring loss. the impact results suggest that adopting technology played a positive role of increasing rice production. thus these findings lead to the rejection of hypothesis (b) which was stated as there is no impact of post-harvest technologies on beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries farmers. the table 5 shows the marginal effects and odds ratio of different variables. the age of household head is 0.3% more likely to adopt ph technologies than others. the dr and cost of mechanical power of each of the family is 0.3% and 0.1% less likely to adopt ph technology. annual income, occupation of hh head and operated area is 0.1%, 13% & 20% respectively more likely to adopt technology. 34issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the households are 10% more likely to have the interest to adopt new ph technologies in terms of access to credit and training exposure. the other particulars are not so significant to interpret.the average of predicted probabilities for adoption of ph technology is about 73% which is similar to the actual frequency for adoption of ph technology. the probit models correctly predict 90% of the values and the rest are misclassified. results of adopting improved post-harvest technologies once each treated household is matched with a control household, the difference between the outcome of the treated household and the outcome of the control household is calculated. the average effect of treatment on the treated (att) is then obtained by averaging these differences. the impacts of the improved rice based post-harvest technologies are shown at the table 6. the improved ph technology as a whole has a positive impact on the average rice production of the farmers. this positive impact means that those using improved ph technology produce rice, on an average, 5.62 per cent more than those who did not leading to the rejection of hypothesis (a) which was stated as there are no options and means for increasing farm productivity and also reducing losses. table 6: propensity score matching (psm) for technology adoption using nearest neighbor matching method source: authors calculation, 2013 note: total number of observations is 270; beneficiaries and non-beneficiaries are 135 and 135, respectively. matched treated and controls are 199 and 22, respectively. the impact of technology on production is very low as the farmers used technology only at the stage of threshing & storage. although technology at all the stage of ph activities altogether can show higher production or better results, this study is limited in this fact. table 7 presents the treatment effects of adoption of improved rice based ph technologies. the result from the regression indicates that the mean value of net production equivalent of improved ph technology adoption is statistically higher than had they not been adopted. this is consistent with the result from propensity score matching. used of improved ph technology effects amount (kg) mean net production of matched treated 3822.93 mean net production of matched controlled 3416.02 impact of ph improved technology 406.91 (5.62%) t-value 1.64 p-value 0.10 35issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 7: average expected net production of aman rice equivalent for post-harvest technology adopters and non-adopters in bangladesh sub-samples decisions stage treatment effectto adopt not to adopt log net production farm households who adopted 8.14 0.00 8.14 farm households who did not adopted 8.12 8.04 -0.08 heterogeneity effects 0.02 -8.04 8.22 source: authors calculation, 2013 improved ph technology adoption increases the rice production by 814%. for non-adopters the mean net production of rice would have been increased by 8% had they adopted improved rice based ph technologies. these results imply that adoption of improved ph technologies increased household welfare measured in terms of rice production; however, the transitional heterogeneity effect is positive 822% that is the effect is bigger for the farm household that did adopt with respect to those that did not adopt. conclusion the study was aimed to identify the factors that affected adoption of improved technologies with a view to suggesting policies for reducing post harvest losses of rice in bangladesh through enhancing farm level adoption of improved technologies. the north region, because of its draught nature incurs more losses (215.95 kg/ha) than south (50.8 kg/ha). according to the previous studies highest ph loss occurred at the time of storage but this study revealed only 19.15 kg (6.57%) storage loss per ha among all the ph activities, as because of lots of ph training and technologies based on how to store rice seed & grain is provided to the farmers efficiently by extension agents which in turn increases the seed germination rate by 92.67%. educated and aged household head have the propensity of adopting improve technology as because the older person realize the theme of heavy manual work pressure to their health than the younger and as working stress reduces only by using technology. household size and dependency ratio has lowered the intensity to adopt technology because of their high family expenses. a unit increase in operated area will increase the possibility of adopting technology. as because of having large farm with large production; farmers try to find out a way to finish all the ph activities as soon as possible to reduce labor cost and also to avoid unexpected weather adversity, technologies is mostly expected by the large farmers followed by the medium and small farmers whereas a unit increase in the cost of mechanical power will lead to the reduction of adopting technology. access to credit and training has a significant impact on adoption rate. since farmers with access to credit are more capable in accumulating capital than their counterparts who do 36issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology not have access, these farmers adopt more. the causal impact estimation of probit model suggests that improve technology adopters have significantly higher crop production than non-adopters by 5.62% even after controlling for all confounding factors. the results from this paper generally confirms the potential direct role of agricultural technology adoption on improving rural household welfare, as higher production tends to higher incomes from improved technology. since agricultural income is the main source to feed rural households, mechanism should be strength to increase the productivity through providing chronically insolvent farmers with modern ph technologies on subsidy base until they recover and finally, more intensive researches on the area should be undertaken specially in the areas of ph loss reduction, gender issues, improved ph technologies and similar issues that contributes for the rice productivity. acknowledgements this research work provides authors numerous benefits and outstanding experience. it helps authors to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge gained during master’s program and practical environment of agri-economics. the authors extend their whole hearted thanks to the faculty of agricultural economics and rural sociology of bangladesh agricultural university for providing some facilities to do this research work. references adesina a.a.,&baidu-forson j. (1995). farmers’ perception and adoption of new agricultural technology: evidence from analysis in burkina faso and guinea, west africa. agricultural economics, 13, 1–9. adesinaa.a.,&zinnah m.m. (1993). technology characteristics, farmers’ perceptions and adoption decisions: a tobit model application in sierra leone. agricultural economics, 9, 297–311. asfaw,s.,&shiferaw,b.(2010).agricultural technology adoption and rural poverty: application of an endogenous switching regression for selected east african countries, international crops research institute for the semi-arid tropics nairobi, kenya. bala, b. k.,haquem. a., hossainm. a., &majumdar, s.(2010). post-harvest loss and technical efficiency of rice, wheat and maize production system: assessment and measures for strengthening food security, national food policy capacity strengthening programme, dhaka, bangladesh. becker, s. o. &ichino, a. (2002).estimation of average treatment effect based on propensity score.stata journal, 4, 358-377. dehejia, h.r., &wahba, s. (2002). propensity score matching methods for non-experimental causal studies. the review of economics statistics, 84(1), 151-161. 37issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology fao & apo (2006).post-harvest management of fruits and vegetables in the asia pacific region.hirakawacho, chiyoda-ku, tokyo 102-0093, japan and food and agriculture organization of the united nations, vialedelleterme di caracalla, 00100 rome, italy. heckman, j., ichimura, h., smith, j.,& todd, p. (1998).characterizing selection bias using experimental data.econometrica, 66 (5), 1017-1098. joshi g.,&pandey s. (2006). farmers’ perceptions and adoption of modern rice varieties in nepal, quarterly journal of international agriculture, 45, 171-186. mottaleb, k. a., mohanty, s., & nelson, a. (2014). factors influencing hybrid rice adoption: a bangladesh case. australian journal of agricultural and resource economics. nkamleug.b.,& adesina a.a. (2000). determinants of chemical input use in periurban lowland systems: bivariate probit analysis in cameroon. agricultural systems, 63, 111–121. rahman s. (2008). determinants of crop choices by bangladeshi farmers: a bivariate probit analysis. asian journal of agriculture and development, 5(1), 29-42. shiyani r.l., joshi p.k., asokan m., &bantilan m.c.s. (2002). adoption of improved chickpea varieties: kribhco experience in tribal region of gujarat, india. agricultural economics,27, 33–39. 38issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 1 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 2 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: science and engineering agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agroforestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science iot, ai, 4th ir, computer science, ict food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 3 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, banglades http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 121 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org identification of key components of payment for ecosystem services (pes) mechanism in begnas lake watershed of pokharalekhnath metropolitan city, nepal arpan gelal1, ukesh raj bhuju2 doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5498319 abstract payment for ecosystem service (pes) scheme for certain ecosystem services is being used as a mechanism to provide incentive to suppliers of the services by the beneficiaries. in nepal, pes like schemes is in practice since a long time, though the discussions on formal pes schemes have recently been started. this study has been carried out at begnas lake watershed (bws), a ramsar site, at pokhara-lekhnath metropolitan of nepal. it aims to understand the perception of local residents towards the implementation of pes scheme in bws. furthermore, it also identifies key actors for pes implementation at bws, their role in pes design and implementation as well as potential payment mechanism for the ecosystem services within the pes scheme at bws. finally, institutional structure for pes design and implementation is also presented. the study finds positive perception of local people towards initiating payment mechanism for the use of ecosystem services to ensure environmental conservation and sustainable management of the resources. both upstream and downstream population favors mix of public/private pes scheme while upstream population favors cashpayment type scheme and downstream population favors the capacity building of upstream communities in conservation efforts. it is also noted that upstream people favor input-based mode of payment and downstream people are inclined towards output-based payments. the study found some ‘pes-like’ practices operational in the watershed. the study recommends the formation of ‘begnas watershed pes advisory and coordination committee’ with due participation of identified stakeholders to initiate and institutionalize formal pes mechanism at bws. keywords: begans lake watershed, payment for ecosystem services, stakeholders, ecosystem services 1 faculty lecturer, national college, kathmandu university, nepal arpan.gelal@nationalcollege.edu.np 2 dean, school of development studies and applied sciences, lumbini buddhist university, nepal http://journals.e-palli.org/ https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5498319 mailto:arpan.gelal@nationalcollege.edu.np american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 122 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction with the increase in population, growing demand of ecosystem services and less efforts in conservation have led to a swirl of conservation innovations over the past decade in the form of various types of payment schemes (wunder, 2007). various payment schemes have been linked extensively to the provision of specific ecosystem services which resembles the concept of payment for ecosystem services (pes) (ferraro & kiss, 2002; wunder, 2007). pes occurs when the beneficiaries or users of an ecosystem service make payments to the providers of that service. in practice, pes takes the timely form of payments to suppliers for using various types of ecosystem services. the basic idea is that whoever provides a service should be paid for doing so (fripp, 2014). pes has come to conservation front in the past decade as a possible solution to address environmental problems and ecosystem restoration. pes is a relatively new cooperative tool for environmental protection, it is important if used carefully (un, 2014). in context of nepal, various forms of payment mechanisms exist for ecosystem services like drinking water, irrigation and tourism. but these are not the formal pes mechanisms because of lack of key elements of pes. in actual practice, the service providers do not receive payment for management of services. there is potential of localized pes schemes for sustainable management of resources in nepal (iucn, 2013). however, there lacks the clear provision within the policy, acts, rules, regulations and guidelines to institutionalize pes and benefit sharing. awareness and empowerment of local communities is mandatory to end the situation of managers of services remain suffered and free riders getting the benefit. pes mechanism can play a significant role to improve livelihood of people and enhance biodiversity conservation (kunwar, 2008). designing mechanisms for pes help to motivate individuals and communities to take actions that increase or maintain the provision of ecosystem services. as nature provides the services, it is not clear whom to pay but creating mechanisms or institutions for payment provide motivation for those who conserve the ecosystem. it can help to fulfill the goal of both conservation and sustained use of environmental services in a win-win scenario for both buyers and sellers. this study intends to outline the perception of local residents towards pes mechanism for sustainable conservation of watershed along with perception towards potential approach and mode of payment in begnas lake watershed in pokhara-lekhnath metropolitan city of nepal. it also identifies key actors of pes mechanism along with existing payment schemes. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 123 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org furthermore, this study outlines potential payment modality and role of identified stakeholders in the formal pes scheme to be implemented. finally, the institutional structure of the pes scheme for the begnas lake watershed is also designed. materials and methods description of the study site begnas lake is a freshwater lake situated in the pokhara-lekhnath metropolitan of kaski district in nepal. it extends between 28º 7’ n to 28º12’ n latitude and 84º5’ e to 84º10’ e longitudes. the average depth of water in the lake is estimated to be 6.6 m with the water surface elevation 655.7 m abmsl (nlcdc, 2010). begnas lake is an eutrophic fresh water lake with total catchment area of 18.7 square km. the water body of the lake is 3.27 square km (373 ha) including the shallow areas i.e. the marsh fields towards west, north and east. however, the estimated land area of the watershed is 4,504 ha (oli, 1996). begnas is the second largest lake of pokhara valley after phewa lake in nepal. it was designated as the ramsar site on 2nd february 2016 along with other lake clusters of pokhara valley (ramsar, 2016). begnas lake watershed (bws) is undergoing various developmental pressures; mainly the urbanization which can be perceived as the major threat to sustainable environmental management. drastic changes in the land use practices; conversion of cultivable land into residential areas and rapid increase in commercial areas have created significant impact on the environmental aspects of the watershed. begnas lake and its watershed area along with nearby rupa lake is a famous tourism site with large inflow of both domestic and international tourists. a seasonal monsoon stream syankhudi khola is the major inlet stream to the lake. small seasonal streams namely lipdi, maladi, majhikuna are the other supporting inlet to the begnas lake. the outlet stream is khudi khola. begnas lake supports livelihood of large number of households and watershed area is extensively developed for domestic and international tourism. moreover, begnas lake holds importance from the point of boating, trekking, bird watching and other eco touristic activities. downstream population and people around begnas lake are directly dependent on the ecosystem services of the lake. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 124 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org figure 1 geographical location of the study site (source: adopted from li-bird, 2016) research methodology the study used both qualitative and quantitative mode of enquiry. the research proceeded with identification of spatial and temporal context of the study site, identification of sampling frame, determination of sample size and identification of concerned business, governmental, nongovernmental organizations and concerned communities either as a producer, consumer of ecosystem services or involved in environmental conservation activities at the study site. qualitative tools for the study included observation, household surveys, key informant interviews (kii), focus group discussion (fgd) and desk research. the identification of location for household survey was done with consultation with experts and local environment activists. sundari danda, bhanjyang-panchbhaiya, majhikuna and lamichhane gaun at majhthana were the places selected for household survey at upstream community whereas household survey at downstream community was carried out at piple, sisuwa and gagangauda areas. the rationale for selection of these places is that these places at upstream are well known for community forestry management practices and the selected places at downstream are the major users of ecosystem services either fishery, boating, irrigation or tourism. a total of 500 households representing upstream and downstream were surveyed. focused group discussions (fgd) and key informant interviews (kii) were carried out with http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 125 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org various stakeholder to identify the current payment mechanisms, their perceptions towards pes and their potential role in the formal pes mechanisms. households from upstream community and downstream community were sampled using strategic sampling procedure of purposive sampling method. the major advantage of using purposive sampling is that the samples were identified under certain conditions to be assured they are the reliable sources of information, and a small sample size would be reliable to make generalization of the study. special attention was given that sampled population includes beneficiaries of community forests, beneficiary groups like fishermen, boaters, hotel owners, other tourism entrepreneurs, farmers and other land users. the households were considered eligible for the sample under following assigned criteria: • residing at the study area atleast for five years. • household head must be atleast 30 years of age. • must have general knowledge about the environment and natural resources of the study area. • a member of community forest user group (cfug) for upstream. • involved in boating, fishing, irrigation, tourism or the beneficiary any other ecosystem services for the downstream. various institutions/organizations were also consulted for the purpose of the study. following are the institutions consulted: table 1 organizations consulted for the study s.no. organizations rationale 1 begnas and rupa tourism promotion committee major user of ecosystem services 2 begnas taal boat entrepreneurs association major user of ecosystem services 3 district agriculture development office major user of ecosystem services 4 district forest office, kaski concerned stakeholder 5 fish entrepreneurs association, begnas taal concerned stakeholder 6 hotel and restaurant association, lekhnath major user of ecosystem services 7 ilaka forest office, sisuwa concerned stakeholder 8 irrigation development division, kaski concerned stakeholder 9 li-bird, pokhara ngo working in bws environmental aspects of begnas and rupa lake 10 seed foundation, panchbhaiya ngo working in bws environmental aspects of begnas and rupa lake 11 ward office, pl metropolitan 30 & 32 concerned stakeholder 12 water user association, begnas major user of ecosystem services http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 126 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org focus group discussion and key informant interviews were conducted among the people representing various fields like business, leading farmer, local politician etc. to gather overall information regarding the availability of ecosystem services, tradable and consumptive ecosystem services and gather understanding on key components and general perception towards pes scheme. fgd was carried out using a semi structured checklist. results and discussion respondent’s perception on pes perception for activities of upstream people affecting flow of ecosystem services 80% of upstream respondents and 60% of downstream respondents reported that they believe activities of upstream people effects the availability of ecosystem services to downstream people. however, 13.33% of upstream respondents and 16.67% of downstream respondents didn’t believe on activities of upstream people affecting flow of ecosystem services. 6.67% of upstream people and 23.33% of downstream people replied that they had no idea about it. table 2 respondents' perception on activities of upstream people on flow of es (source: field study, 2020) perception on paying and receiving compensation for use of ecosystem services 73.33% of upstream respondents believe that downstream should pay compensation for their contribution on preserving ecosystem while 16.67% replied that they don’t need any such compensation. however, 10% of respondents didn’t have idea about it. regarding downstream respondents, 70% of them are ready to pay compensation for upstream people. 20% aren’t willing to pay whereas 10% didn’t have any idea whether to provide compensation or not. table 3 perception on paying and receiving compensation s.no. perception upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondents 1 it affects 80.00 60.00 2 it does not affect 13.33 16.67 3 don’t know 6.67 23.33 total 100 100 s.no. perception upstream (receive) downstream (pay) % of respondents % of respondents 1 yes 73.33 70.00 2 no 16.67 20.00 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 127 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org (source: field study, 2020) perception on role of pes for sustainable management of watershed resources majority of respondents believe that implementation of pes scheme could enhance sustainable management and conservation of watershed resources. 76.67% of upstream respondents and 63.33% of downstream respondents believed that pes could enhance conservation. however, 13.33% of upstream respondents and 23.33% didn’t believe role of pes in sustainable conservation and management. meanwhile 10% of upstream respondents and 13.33% of downstream respondents had no idea on it. table 4 role of pes on conservation and sustainable management (source: field study, 2020) perception on type of appropriate pes scheme after elaborating the respondents about types of pes schemes i.e., public, private or publicprivate; most of the respondents favored public/private scheme. 66.67% upstream respondents and 70% downstream respondents chose public/private scheme. 23.33% upstream respondents and 13.33% downstream respondents favored private scheme whereas 10% upstream respondents and 16.67% downstream respondents favored public pes scheme. table 5 respondents' perception on type of payment scheme (source: field study, 2020) 3 don’t know 10.00 10.00 total 100 100 s.no. perception upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondets 1 pes is needed for sustainable management of lake ecosystem 76.67 63.33 2 pes is not needed for sustainable management of lack ecosystem 13.33 23.33 3 don’t know 10.00 13.33 total 100 100 s.no. perception upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondents 1 public 10.00 16.67 2 private 23.33 13.33 3 public-private 66.67 70.00 total 100 100 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 128 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org respondents’ perception on approach of payment when asked what the approach of payment could be, half of upstream respondents reported that cash payment from the downstream people would be appropriate. however, 23.33% reported that downstream people should help in building capacity for upstream people, while 10% believed that downstream people should help in infrastructure development as compensation of using ecosystem services. however, 16.67% were willing to pay for lake management. regarding downstream respondents, majority of respondents chose to pay for capacity building of upstream people (33.33%). other chose infrastructure development of upstream (26.67%), cash payment (26.67%) and lake management (13.33%). table 6 respondents’ perception on payment approach respondents’ perception on mode of payment majority of upstream respondents (63.33%) stated in favor of input based payment i.e., payment for the process or initiatives of upstream conservation rather than the payment for benefit generated due to conservation attempts or investments. however, 36.67% of upstream respondents favored for output-based payment. but majority of downstream respondents i.e. 73.33% favored output based payment scheme although 23.67% went for input based payment scheme. table 7 respondents’ perception on mode of payment (source: field study, 2020) s.no payment approach upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondents 1 cash payment 50.00 26.67 2 capacity building 23.33 33.33 3 infrastructure development 10.00 26.67 4 lake management 16.67 13.33 total 100 100 (source: field study, 2020) s.no. mode of payment upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondents 1 output-based 36.67 73.33 2 input-based 63.33 23.67 total 100 100 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 129 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org respondents’ perception on who should pay 13.33% of upstream respondents stated that tourism entrepreneurs should be made liable for payment, same percentage of respondents believed district development committee (ddc) should pay. only 6.67% stated fishermen should pay whereas 13.33% believed downstream farmers should pay and majority, 53.33% believed all of them should be made liable for payment. considering downstream respondents, 30% of respondents reported tourism entrepreneurs should be made liable for payment whereas same 13.33% percentage stated ddc and farmers are to be made liable. 16.67% stated payment to be made from fishermen and 26.67% believed all of them should pay. table 8 respondents’ perception on who should pay (source: field study, 2020) perception on condition for payment to upstream when asked to downstream respondents about what upstream people should do to ensure regular flow of es so that payment could be made, 13.33% replied that forest conservation should be the major condition. very few, 6.67% replied that upstream should assure managed urbanization whereas 10% stated that upstream should assure about sustainable land use practices. same 10% stressed on sustainable agricultural practices, 3.33% reported that pollution minimization should be major condition whereas 10% favored for conservation of water bodies as the major condition. however, almost half of the respondents i.e., 46.67% reported that all these factors should be the condition of regular flow of es to downstream people. table 9 downstream respondents’ perception on conditions for payment s.no. who should pay upstream downstream % of respondents % of respondents 1 tourism entrepreneur 13.33 30.00 2 district development committee 13.33 13.33 3 farmers 13.33 13.33 4 fishermen 6.67 16.67 5 all of them 53.33 26.67 total 100 100 s.no. conditions downstream % of respondents 1 forests conservation 13.33 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 130 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org (source: field survey, 2020) key pes actors sellers/suppliers to develop pes scheme, ssllers/suppliers are the crucial actors whose actions generate ecosystem services or they simply are in the position to ensure and safeguard regular flow of ecosystem services. generally, land users, individual farmers, community groups, government agencies, and even private companies are sellers of es (jindal and kerr, 2007). in context of bws, upstream area is the major supplier of es. land user and farmers whose land use and agricultural practices impact soil erosion, flooding, water purification, sediment and soil retention are the major suppliers of ecosystem services. community forests and user groups, owner of private forests, orchids and garden owners are other important suppliers of prioritized ecosystem services like irrigation in downstream, erosion control, carbon sequestration, water recharge and discharge, habitat for wildlife and availability of water, sedimentation control and nutrient retention at begnas lake. furthermore, community organizations and local government bodies working for local conservation attempts and environment friendly development initiatives like road construction are also suppliers of ecosystem services. buyer/beneficiaries the development of pes scheme would be waste of time and resource without the identification of buyers of certain ecosystem services (es). buyers may directly consume or get benefited from the ecosystem service or may be indirectly benefiting from certain service, so clear identification of buyers of es is crucial. in case of bws, tourists and associated tourism entrepreneurs are the major buyers of es of begnas lake. there are 165 hotels and restaurants in or around begnas along with around 200 tea shops. furthermore, the travel and tour operators selling begnas packages are other major buyers. the serenity of the lake is 2 managed urbanization 6.67 3 sustainable land use practices 10.00 4 sustainable agricultural practices 10.00 5 pollution minimization 3.33 6 conservation of water bodies 10.00 7 all of above 46.67 total 100 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 131 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org major tourist attraction whose beauty depends on rate of erosion and nutrient flow from upstream area. fishermen and farmers are the potential buyers of fishing and irrigation services. livelihood of 42 jalari families is directly dependent on wetland resources, 5000 farmers downstream are beneficiaries of begnas irrigation system. begnas lake boat entrepreneurs’ committee (bbec) is another buyer of es. nepal electricity authority (nea) could be the potential buyer of electricity generated from begnas lake. three types of service users i.e., beneficiaries could be identified in bws. first group are the immediate final users like fishermen or farmers who use water resources for fishing or irrigation. second group is the business group, like begnas lake boat entrepreneurs’ committee, lekhnath hotel and restaurant association or nepal electricity authority. and the third as well as important indirect beneficiary is the government or local authorities. for instance, municipality levying tax on hotels and restaurant and district development committee (ddc) collecting tax from boaters or fishermen’s association and central government collecting visa fee from the tourists. intermediaries intermediaries serve as agents linking buyers and sellers and helps with scheme design and implementation. they help users and suppliers set up successful pes transactions. the potential intermediaries range from individuals, groups, ngos, local governments, donors to private companies. they play the role of linking the service users and suppliers and taking lead over the implementation of the pes program (jindal and kerr, 2007). they help in building rapport between buyers and sellers and third-party monitoring of overall pes mechanism. in context of bws local ngos working could take a lead as intermediary. a pokhara based ngo called li-bird working in bws since many years has recently taken a lead to establish pes like basket fund for watershed conservation. local government could also act as intermediary to link upstream and downstream. the concerned ward officials could take a lead. the governmental departments and line agencies like district forest office (dfo), district agriculture development office (dado), district irrigation development office (dido), district soil conservation and watershed management (dscwm) offices who are connected with both upstream and downstream people could act as an independent third man in design and monitoring of pes mechanism. knowledge providers knowledge providers are essential to provide ideas and technical assistance regarding scheme development and implementation. they ensure the pes scheme designed is appropriate and http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 132 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org viable. they provide advice on appropriate management practices to service providers and steps to be taken to secure long term provision of es for trade in pes mechanisms. knowledge providers generally includes valuation experts, land use planners, resource management experts, regulators and business and legal advises to assure pes contact abides by the national laws and regulations. in context of bws, local ngo li-bird could be a primary knowledge provider regarding pes concerning it has initiated to develop basket fund for conservation linking service users and suppliers. similarly other ngos and ingos like wwf, iucn, natioanal trust for nature conservation (ntnc) who have worked for pes at other places could extend their help here. various institutions like agriculture and forestry university (afu), fishery research centre, begnas, regional agriculture research station, lumle, regional irrigation directorate, pokhara, regional irrigation directorate, pokhara and other bodies like dfo, dado, dido, fecofun, dscwm could also extend knowledge support in pes scheme development in bws. table 10 key pes actors in bws sellers/suppliers of es buyers/ beneficiaries of es intermediaries knowledge providers • community forest user groups • private land owners • government as public land owners • farmers in the upstream • fruit orchid owners, coffee farmers and private forest owners • community organizations and groups working for environmental conservation in upstream • local government agencies working for conservation of upstream ecosystem • begnas lake fish entrepreneurs’ association (bfea) • begnas lake boat entrepreneurs’ committee (bbec) • water user association (bis) • lekhnath hotel and restaurants association • begnas rupa tourism promotion committee • pokhara-lekhnath chamber of commerce and industry • travel agencies selling begnas packages • national and international tourists • nepal electricity authority (nea) • small tea shop owners • district development committee, kaski • pokhara-lekhnath municipality (ward 29, 30, 31, 32) • madi village council (gau palika) • nepal government • district forest office (dfo) • district agriculture development office (dado) • district irrigation development office (dido) • federation of community forestry user groups nepal (fecofun) • ngos & ingos • li-bird, pokhara • seed foundation, panchbhaiya • ngos & ingos (wwf, iucn, ntnc etc.) • district forest office (dfo) • district agriculture development office (dado) • district irrigation development office (dido) • federation of community forestry user groups nepal (fecofun) • department of soil conservation and watershed management (dscwm) • department of road • fishery research centre, begnas • regional agriculture directorate, pokhara • regional irrigation http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 133 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org and street vendors around begnas lake • downstream farmers • land owners downstream • local government bodies earning revenue from tourism and related enterprises • researcher and explorers • department of soial conservation and watershed management (dscwm) directorate, pokhara • regional agriculture research station, lumle • agriculture and forestry university • institute of forestry, tribhuvan university • business and legal advisers • academicians and researchers • national college, kathmandu university (source: field study, 2020) existing pes mechanism in bws there is no formal pes mechanism in existence in bws. however, it was found that stakeholders have been investing in begnas lake management activities every year. as reported by jhalak jalari, president of benas fish entrepreneurs association (bfea) around 10% of annual income of annual profit is invested in lake management which includes cleanliness campaigns, removing noxious weeds including jal khumbhi (pistia stratiotes) and donation to road construction activities. the income from royalty through sell of fish i.e., nrs 5 per kg from the fishermen is collected and invested in lake management activities. dhaknath kandel, president of begnas boaters entrepreneurs committee (bbec) also reported that bbec also regularly invests in lake cleanliness and weed removal. bbec, bfea, lekhnath hotel and restaurant association, local government bodies and other line agencies invest in organizing fish festival in begnas lake; usually in the month of falgun (february march). certain percentage of profit of fish festival is used in lake management. recently, li-bird, an ngo working in bws has initiated the development of basket fund for watershed conservation. established in september 2016, ‘begnas lake conservation fund’ is in due process of registration and supposed to work under local self governance act, and local self governance regulations. li-bird has prepared begnas lake conservation fund management guidelines and has proposed among stakeholders. this fund would be managed by a committee formed among stakeholders after extensive discussion among them. the major aim of fund is proposed to be ecosystem conservation, biodiversity and lake conservation, construction of environment friendly infrastructures, forest conservation, promote local skills on organic farming, environment friendly agricultural http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 134 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org practices, bioengineering activities and construction of water sports infrastructure. the proposed potential funding source of fund is donations from ingo/ingos, income from festivals and celebrations, amount collected from beneficiaries like bbec, bfea, hotel and restaurants associations, community forests, local government bodies and other beneficiaries. regarding, working mechanism, the management committee would receive applications from local groups or organizations and funds would be provided after detailed examination with due priority for proposals from upstream, contributing to lake conservation and intended on uplifting livelihood skills on wetland dependent minority groups (li-bird, 2016a). however, evaluating the funding mechanism, working guidelines and investing criteria and process, the initiative couldn’t be termed as pes mechanism as there is no compulsory provision of payment by beneficiaries; it is a ‘pes like’ mechanism. potential payment mechanism for es of bws various payment mechanisms can be adopted in bws for payment of its major ecosystem services. the common mechanism could be entrance fee, service charge, use fee, permit fee and channelizing the portion of royalty regenerated from sale of services for conservation activities and ecosystem management. table 11 payment mechanism for major es major es payment mechanism recreation and ecotourism entrance fee, service fee and taxes, use fee erosion control (soil, sediment and nutrient retention) mutually agreed channel, additional charge on govt. taxes and investment on upstream fishing and irrigation water use fee, additional charge and permit fee for fishing ground water recharge and discharge portion of royalty generated from water distribution, individual annual payment for lake management and conservation habitat for wildlife (biodiversity conservation) national and international grants for conservation, trade of tradable species, people’s wtp for conservation carbon sequestration international payment based on capacity building or infrastructure or livelihood development based on international accepted market price for carbon sequestration (source: field visit, 2020) roles of key stakeholders in pes discussion with various service users, suppliers, entrepreneurs’ groups, government line agencies, local government body, non-governmental organizations, community organizations through focus group discussion, key informant interview and stakeholder consultation helped http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 135 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org to generalize the potential roles of key stakeholders in pes process to be designed and implemented in bws. district development committee can take a lead to implement/initiate pes in bws with due consultation with other stakeholders and provide technical support in designing working mechanism of pes with due monitoring activities all the way. government line agencies (dfo, dado, dido, dswco, nepal tourism board (ntb), could help design pes scheme along with its organizational structure and funding mechanism through their input in particular es. they can provide technical and material support to build up capacity of sellers in restoring es and ensuring efficient flow of es. ngos/ingos can also play a significant role. as li-bird has initiated a ‘pes-like’ scheme by establishing conservation fund in bws, similar type of assistance could be provided by other ingos like wwf, iucn, ntnc etc. who have experience and expertise in designing and implementing pes in other areas. however, their key roles could be raising awareness about importance of pes, provide technical and material support and help in monitoring. as local government body, pokhara-lekhnath metropolitan, village councils and concerned wards can provide consent on proposals about pes implementation in bws and also provide legal consent to collect any type of service fee, collect and invest funds legally and help to resolve any conflicts arising in the process. they themselves can design and implement pes mechanism through legal measures. as a key party in pes scheme in bws, service providers like community forestry user groups (csug), land users, farmers or community groups should involve in negotiation process and show their commitment in ecosystem conservation and show their capacity in doing so. they should commit for proper fund investment. as a major service user groups, bfea, bbea, water user association (wua), downstream farmers and downstream residents; their key roles include their commitment in payment for use services in a timely basis, involve in negotiation process as well as help in conserving ecosystem of upstream through constructive suggestions and participate in monitoring of pes fund mobilization. local political parties could advocate for payment mechanism or influence their elected local representative to initiate such kind of scheme. moreover, community groups and networks might assist help in capacity building and monitoring. local leaders of political parties could build consensus among people for need and implementation of pes scheme and mediate any conflicts arising in the process. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 136 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org institutional structure for pes implementation figure 2 institutional mechanism for pes implementation the suggested institutional structure for pes in bws is sketched in figure below. the advisory and coordination committee should be formed including the representatives of major concerned government line agencies and local government agencies like dfo, dado, dido, dscwm, metropolitan, wards etc. this committee should initiate and coordinate the overall process including the buyers, sellers and other intermediaries. the buyers and sellers should be made to come to a common platform for negotiation. ngo/ingos, private sector, legal advisors and pes experts should act as intermediary and provide knowledge for effective negotiation and implementation of pes scheme. this should lead to a creation of http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 137 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org institutional mechanism for pes implementation. a third-party monitoring through individual group is suggested to monitor the effectiveness and efficiency of the pes scheme. the capacity building of the sellers or suppliers and conditionality by buyers remains crux of effectiveness of mechanism. conclusion there are various entrepreneurs’ group in begnas lake area that are making notable income from the ecosystem services of bws. particularly, begnas fish entrepreneurs’ association, begnas boat entrepreneurs’ committee, water user association of begnas irrigation system (bis), lekhnath hotel and restaurants association, various travel agencies, small street vendors around begnas lake and tourists visiting the lake are the direct beneficiaries of es services of bws. they depend on boating, fishing, tourism entrepreneurship, which is primarily derived from the water regulation and recreational services of begnas lake i.e., bws. so, they should be liable to pay the suppliers of those services i.e., the upstream land users, farmers and conservationists. moreover, all the downstream residents of the watershed are beneficiaries of es of watershed. but these beneficiaries are playing negligible role in watershed conservation. their role is limited to conducting some sorts of begnas lake cleanliness campaigns and organizing begnas fish festival. the major actors who are trading off some cost for generating the flow of es are not getting the returns for their efforts. for this, development of pes mechanism would be best practice to ensure sustainable management and conservation of watershed as well as upliftment of livelihood of upstream people. the consultation with major stakeholders revealed that they are ready to work for the environment conservation in the watershed. the portion of their income can be invested for conservational activities as well as to fund developmental initiatives in the upstream. moreover, all the surveyed respondents, as a beneficiary of various es are willing to pay for the sustainable management and conservation of the watershed. but there lacks the formal mechanism for sustainable financing the conservation activities and channelizing the fund collected from entrepreneur groups and other beneficiaries. for this, development of pes mechanism could be the best option. a pokhara based ngo has initiated development of pes like scheme where various stakeholders have committed some amount on to-beestablished basket fund for bws conservation, called as ‘begnas conservation fund’. but lack of proper leadership and lack of binding mechanism to bind beneficiaries into the payment scheme would be obstacles to achieve the goal of such initiatives. so, various governmental agencies like dfo, dido, dado, locally elected peoples’ representatives on http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 138 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org wards and pokhara-lekhnath metropolitan who could act as intermediary and other ngos/ingos who have played vital role in development of pes schemes in other places should take a lead to establish sustainable financing mechanism for watershed conservation through development of pes mechanism. for this in initial stage, these stakeholders could form a ‘begnas watershed pes advisory and coordination committee’, make strategies, and bring upstream and downstream communities, entrepreneurs’ groups and other beneficiaries into the payment mechanism. references ferraro, p., & kiss, a. (2002). direct payments to conserve biodiversity. science, 298, 17181719. fripp, e. (2014). payments for ecosystem services (pes): a practical guide to assessing the feasibility of pes projects. bogor, indonesia: cifor. iucn. (2013). payment for ecosystem services in nepal prospect, practice and process. kupondole, lalitpur: iucn nepal. jindar, r. & kerr, j. (2007). basic principles of pes (usaid pes brief 1. washington: usaid. kunwar, k.j. (2008). payment for environmental services in nepal (a case study of shivapuri national park, kathmandu, nepal). available from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.692.8684&rep=rep1&type= pdf [accessed 24 july 2020]. li-bird (2016). begnas lake conservation fund management guidelines 2016. pokhara: li-bird. national lake conservation development committee (2010). conservation of begnas lake, nepal: a case of conflict to collective action in resource sharing (multiple water use) [online]. retrieved from http://rcse.edu.shiga-u.ac.jp/gov-pro/plan/2008list/06020504.pdf [accessed: 02 february 2017]. oli, k.p. (1996). environmental study of nepal’s begnas and rupa lakes. iucn. kathmandu: ncs implementation project. ramsar. (2016). ramsar sites information service [online]. retrieved from https://rsis.ramsar.org/ris/2257 [accessed 20 july 2020] . un. (2014). the value of forests payments for ecosystem services in a green economy (timber and forest study paper 34). geneva: united nations. wunder, s. (2007). the efficiency of payments for environmental services in tropical conservation. conservation biology, 21(1), 48-58. http://journals.e-palli.org/ microsoft word 96-struggling learners' achievement level using electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath)-edited v-2 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, any engineering and technology related original and innovative works. editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh professor dr. nirmal chandra roy, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 207 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org struggling learners' achievement level using electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) glory fe oraller balazo1 doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v5i2.96 abstract this study focused on the achievement levels of grade 11 struggling learners using an electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) in teaching least mastered competencies in the subject, statistics and probability for senior high school. a solomon four-group quasi-experimental research design was employed to two classes using esimath-based instruction, and two classes via conventional instruction, who were identified through a local diagnostic examination given by the teacherresearcher before the instruction for the second semester of the school year 2019-2020. the data gathered were analyzed using independent and dependent t-test, dunnett's t3 test for post-hoc analysis of posttest scores, and assessment of mean gained scores. findings of the study showed that the use of esimath-based instruction is an effective approach in the increase of struggling learners' achievement level in statistics & probability. keywords: achievement level, conventional teaching, electronic strategic intervention, material, pre-test, posttest 1 graduate student, eastern samar state university, special science teacher 1, dolores national high school american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 208 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction mathematics is challenging, rewarding, and fun. it is both logical and creative. it needs critical, analytical, problem solving, and quantitative reasoning. disciplines such as mathematics and science, unfortunately, create negative feedback for most high school students(salviejo et al., 2014). works of lee, grigg and dion (2007) showed that only a few students achieved the proficient level in mathematics, and at least 33% did not reach even the basic level. in the year 2018, filipino students participated in the programme for international students assessment (pisa) and among the 79 participating countries, the philippines ranked second last in the bottom in both mathematics and science (san juan, 2019). these results are associated with the performance of students in dolores national high school; the mathematics mean percentage score, specifically in the course statistics and probability of grade 11 students are still below 75%. these poor math results are indicators that learners of today struggles in understanding mathematical concepts and skills. with the pressing issues in the country's present educational system, supovitz and klein (2003) opined the need for teachers to be more creative, flexible, and to provide aid to students' performance. according to zakaria and iksan (2007), the use of the latest approaches, methodologies, and strategies in teaching will encourage the learners to gain more knowledge and to apply the best practices in mathematics education. the use of technology inside the classroom helps the students become independent (baylor & ritchie, 2002; windschitl & sahl, 2002). the said approach paves the way for an interactive and collaborative learning inside the four corners of the classroom. as presented by himmelsbach (2019), technology integration enables students' engagement, maximization of self-paced learning, and promotes innovative teaching techniques. with this, the researcher adopted the idea of integrating technology in teaching least mastered competencies in the subject statistics and probability for senior high school. the researcher's desire to help students develop their mathematical competence is aided through an electronic strategic intervention material (esim). electronic strategic intervention material is the newest remediation material prescribed by the department of education (deped). according to dumigsi and cabrella (2019), sim is a useful remediation tool in solving problems, while dahar (2011) found the use of sim effective in improving learners' mathematics performance. this esimath based instruction utilized a researcher-developed learning tool embedded in a computer software that contains a title card, guide card, activity card, enrichment card, and reference card. the said instructional material focused on regression analysis as a consistent least learned competency based on the item analyses conducted for the school year 2017 – 2018 and 2018 – 2019 in dolores national high school. given all the aforementioned reasons involving a considerable number of learners who are experiencing difficulty in mastering learning and the critical role of technology in understanding complex mathematical concept, this study finds it significant to develop an electronic-based strategic intervention material in matheamatics (esimath) focusing on regression analysis which is included in the topic: inferential statistics, among 11th-grade students in dolores national high school of the school year 2019-2020 via four group solomon approach. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 209 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org methods research design this is a quasi-experimental study via solomon four group design that determined the achievement levels of struggling students using electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) among grade 11 statistics and probability classes, specifically focusing on the least mastered competencies on regression analysis. locale of the study the experimentation was administered at dolores national high school located at reynaldo st. barangay 09 dolores, eastern samar, philippines. the school was chosen because it is one of the pilot schools which implemented the senior high school, has a big enrolment and due to the proximity of its location to the researcher. results of the tests in grade 11 statistics and probability were limited among four classes of 11th grade learners enrolled in the humanities and social sciences track for the school year 2019-2020. respondents of the study the grade 11 humanities and social sciences (humss) struggling students were the subjects of this study. it is the teacher-researchers' observation that in dolores national high school, at least 50% among humss students are having difficulty in understanding the concepts in mathematics. so, with this, the researcher decided to have them as the subjects of this study. four classes, with 30 subjects each, were involved in the experiment, two classes for the experimental group and two classes for the control group. sampling procedure the researcher employed non-random purposive sampling in selecting the subjects for the experimental and control group using a local diagnostic before the instruction for the 2nd semester as the basis in selecting its subjects. research instrument a 25-item pretest/posttest instrument was drafted by the teacher-researcher, and was content validated among master teacher, senior high coordinator, and expert teachers who have finished or have completed academic requirements for master of arts in teaching mathematics. the said instrument was then pilot tested to non-participating class, and the result yielded a 0.731 reliability coefficient through cronbach's' alpha. an electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) made by the teacher-researcher was also used which undergone content validation, among mathematics teachers in order to determine the strong and weak points of the developed esimath. comments and recommendations were considered in modifying the material. data analysis the data collected in this study were tabulated, analyzed and statistically treated using percentage achievement scores, dependent and dependent t-test, one-way analysis of variance, and dunnetts’ t3 test for multiple comparisons. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 210 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org results and discussion pretest achievement levels of the experimental group and control group table 1 presents the pretest achievement levels of the experimental group (eg1) and control group (cg1). the experimental group (eg1) got a percentage score of 24.52, while the control group (cg1) obtained 22.12. their scores deviations' showed minimal difference, before their exposure to the instructions. these results were both interpreted as with "low achievement". this pattern of observation on pretest assessment result has been shown in previous works, specifically with abuda (2019), in which participants assigned in control and experimental groups got low scores in the pretest assessment, and jitendra and xin (1997) who suggested that at-risk students first master basic numerical skills before engaging in more complex tasks such as problem-solving. the data signify that the subjects in both groups belong to struggling learners and poorly performing in class. table 1. pretest achievement levels of the experimental group and control group groups percentage score sd achievement level eg1 24.52 1.655 low achievement cg1 22.12 1.332 low achievement sd standard deviation posttest achievement level of the four groups table 2 showcases the posttest achievement levels of the four groups namely: experimental group/eg1 (with pretest), experimental group/eg2 (without pretest), control group/cg1 (with pretest), and control group/cg2 (without pretest). the table shows that both the experimental group with and without pretest gained percentage scores of 60.40 and 55.08, respectively of which are interpreted as "average achievement". on the other hand, the control group with pretest gained a mean score of 43.88 interpreted as "average achievement", and the control group without pretest got the lowest achievement score of 36.28 interpreted as with "average achievement". it can be observed that groups exposed to pretest assessment (eg1 and cg1) performed better than their counterparts, although all of the four groups performed in the same achievement level. these findings are consistent with the available data of de jesus (2019), that the use of sim significantly increase the learners' performance on the least mastered topics, and moore (2007) who pinpointed that learners who are into technology became more, engage and concentrated in learning the topics. table 2. posttest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups groups percentage score sd achievement level eg1 60.40 2.264 average achievement eg2 55.08 4.376 average achievement cg1 43.88 3.624 average achievement cg2 36.28 3.352 average achievement sd standard deviation difference between the pretest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups prior to analyzing the test on the significant difference of the pretest scores of the two group, normality test via shapiro wilk approach was conducted, and the results showed that the scores of the two groups followed normal distribution since p values from two groups were greater than 0.05. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 211 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org results in table 3 reveal that since the p-value is higher than the level of significance set at 0.05, the researcher fails to reject the null hypothesis. therefore, the pretest achievement scores of the control and experimental group showed a non-significant difference. this amplifies that the learning achievement of the subjects were homogenous as opined by fajardo (2004). a similar achievement level resulted due to the pairing made by the researcher to assure that the two groups were made equal. table 3. test significant difference on pretest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups groups t-value p-value decision interpretation eg1 1.547 .127 fail to reject h0 not significant cg1 df = 58, α = 0.5 difference between the pretest and posttest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups table 4 presents the mean difference of scores between the achievement levels in the pretest and posttest mean scores of the experimental group (eg1) and control group (cg1), and the pretest sensitization of the experimental groups and control groups, respectively. it can be observed from the table that highest mean difference can be seen on the experimental group with pretest (eg1 = -8.97), while the lowest mean difference reflects on the control group without pretest (cg2 = -3.53). since the control group without pretest describes pretest sensitization, it is safe to declare that the exposure to pretest has little impact on the posttest performance of the students. since all the computed p-values were less than the level of significance set at 0.05. the results suggest that there is a significant difference between the pretest and posttest mean scores of the experimental group and control group, and in both pretest mean score of control and experimental groups and posttest mean score of both experimental and control groups without pretest. this clearly suggests that using electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) enhances the achievement level of struggling math learners in the 11th grade. it was also observed that there is a significant difference of achievement levels of students who were exposed to pretest and those who were not pretested. this general observation is also supported by findings from zhang et al. (2015) on the improvement of student learning after exposing them to math apps. table 4. test significant difference of the pretest and posttest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups df = 29, α = 0.5 posttest achievement levels of the four groups prior to the conduct of multiple post-hoc analysis, shapiro wilk-based normality test was conducted. the result revealed that all the four groups are normally distributed since their pvalues are greater than 0.05. furthermore, in choosing what multiple comparison basedgroups md t-value p-value decision interpretation eg1 (pretest-posttest) -8.97 -19.139 .000 reject h0 significant eg1(pretest)/ eg2(posttest) -7.64 -7.785 .000 reject h0 significant cg1(pretest-posttest) -5.43 -8.649 .000 reject h0 significant cg1(pretest)/ cg2(posttest) -3.53 -5.041 .000 reject h0 significant american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 212 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org parametric test to be used, a levene's analysis was generated which guided the researcher to use dunnette's t3 test since homogeneity of variances cannot be assumed. prior to post hoc analysis, a one-way anova was calculated to determine whether the differences of scores of the four groups are statistically significant. since the computed p-value is less than 0.05, there exists a significant difference in the posttest scores of the four groups. navarro and siegel (2018) stated that the effectiveness of the treatment can be evaluated by comparisons between experimental and control groups with pretest, and experimental and control groups without pretest. table 5 shows that there is a significant difference between the experimental and control group with pretest and also, on the comparison between the experimental and control group without pretest. hence, it can be assumed that the treatment used in the study was effective. electronic strategic intervention material in mathematics (esimath) based instruction is way better compared to conventional teaching method. this is consistent with the findings reported by abuda (2019) on the significant difference found on the posttest mastery levels of the comparison groups, and ferguson (2010) who reported that inquirybased learning instruction showed a significant improvement in the posttest result rather than in conventional instruction in the eighth grade pre-algebra classroom. table 5. dunnette t3 test significant difference of the posttest achievement levels of the four groups *df = 3, a = 0.5 mean gain scores of the experimental and the control group prior to determining the significant difference of the mean gain scores of the experimental and control groups with pretest, a test of homogeneity of variances was used to determine the normality of distribution of the two groups. a levene's statistic of 4.12 with a corresponding p-value of .047 were calculated, which means that equal variances of the two groups are not assumed, which is one requirement for t-test analysis. furthermore, since both groups show normality in their distributions as depicted in the shapiro wilk test of normality, a parametric analysis such as an independent (unmatched) t-test can be used. as shown on table 6 the mean gain score of the experimental group is higher compared to the control group. it has a mean difference of 3.54. thus, technology really helps in engaging young minds and enhancing learners understanding (carlson (2005). furthermore, a t-value of 4.509 was computed with a corresponding p-value of approximately equal to 0. this means that, there is a statistically significant difference between the mean gain scores of the two groups. table 6. test significant difference of the mean gain scores of the experimental and control groups with pretest groups mgs md t-value p-value decision interpretation eg1 8.97 3.54 4.509 .000 reject h0 significant cg1 5.43 df = 53.637, mgs – mean gain scores, md mean difference conclusions groups *f-value/mean difference p-value decision interpretation 4 groups *18.253 0.000 reject h0 significant eg1 – cg1 4.13 .000 reject h0 significant eg2 – cg2 4.70 .000 reject h0 significant american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 213 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org based on the findings of the present study, it is concluded that both the experimental and control groups got a low achievement mean score in the pretest assessment. after exposing these groups to the instructions, the experimental and control groups with pretest performed better in the posttest assessment, while the control group without pretest shown the least achievement. further analysis revealed no significant difference observed between the pretest achievement level of the students in both experimental and control groups, while the pretest and posttest achievement levels of the experimental and control groups showed a significant difference. finally, the achievement levels among the groups significantly improved in the posttest, and based on the anova result all of the four groups significantly differ on their posttest mean scores. having a significant result on the experimental and control groups with pretest, and experimental and control group without pretest we can say that electronic strategic intervention material (esimath) based teaching is better compared to conventional teaching. there is a significant difference between the mean gain score of the experimental and control groups. experimental group show a higher mean gain score compared to the control group. references abuda, b. f., balazo, g. f., orque, j., cabili, m. c., & maestre, m. f. a. (2019). struggling learners’ mathematics achievement level using quick response embedded strategic intervention material. international journal in information technology in governance, education and business, 1(1), 39-45. retrieved from http://www.ijitgeb.org/ijitgeb/article/view/11 abuda, b.f.q. (2019) mastery level of students using strateic intervention material (sim) in teaching mathematics: a quasi-experimental study. instabright egazette 1{1} retrieved from http://instabrightgazette.mystrikingly.com/blog/mastery-level-ofstudents-using-strategic-intervention-material-sim-in-1715bb76-0780-40ea-bebb1ca02d59e81c baylor, a. l., & ritchie, d. (2002). what factors facilitate teacher skill, teacher morale, and perceived student learning in technology-using classrooms?. computers & education, 39(4), 395-41 carlson, s. (2005). the net generation goes to college. the chronicle of higher education, 52 (7), a34–a37 dahar. (2011). effect of the availability and the use of instructional material on academic perfromance o f students in punjab (pakistan). euro journal. de jesus, r. g. (2019). improving the least mastered competencies in science 9 using “pump it up!” electronic strategic intervention material. de la salle university, manila, philippines dumigsi, m. p., and cabrella, j.b.(2019). effectiveness of strategic intervention material in mathematics as remediation for grade 9 students i solving problems involving quadratic functions. fajardo, e. g. (2004) . computer-aided instruction: its effect on the performance of 2nd year students in finding patterns in sequences. masters thesis; sorsogon state college, sorsogon city. ferguson, c. j. (2010). video games and youth voilence: a prospective analysis in adolescents. himmelsbach, v. (2019). technology in the classroom in 2019: 6 pros and cons jitendra, a., & xin, y. p. (1997). mathematical word-problem-solving instruction for students with mild disabilities and students at risk for math failure: a research synthesis. journal of special education, 30(4), 412-432. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 214 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org lee, j., grigg, w., & dion, g. (2007). the nation's report card [tm]: mathematics 2007-national assessment of educational progress at grades 4 and 8. nces 2007494. national center for education statistics. moore, a. (2007). they’ve never taken a swim and thought about jaws: understanding the millennial generation. navarro, m. a., and siegel, j.t.(2008). the sage encyclopedia of educational research, measurement and education. salviejo, e. i., aranes, f. q., & espinosa, a. a. (2014). strategic intervention material-based instruction, learning approach and students' perfromance in chemistry. international journal of learning, teaching and educational research, (pp. 91-123). manila. retrieved 2018, from international journal of learning, teaching and educational research: https://www.ijlter.org/index.php/ijlter/article/view/10/17 san juan, a.d. (2009). pg reels from poor ranking in reading, science and mathematics among 79 countries. supovitz, j. a., & klein, v. (2003). mapping a course for improved student learning: how innovative schools systematically use student performance data to guide improvement. trends in international mathematics and science study (timss). institute of education sciences. retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/timss/ tracing teachers’ use of technology in a laptop computer school: the interplay of teacher beliefs, social dynamics, and institutional culture. american educational research journal, 39(1), 165-205. zakaria, e., & iksan, z. (2007). promoting cooperative learning in science and mathematics education: a malaysian perspective. online submission, 3(1), 35-39 zhang, m. trussell, r. p., gallegos, b., asam, r. r. (2015). using math apps for improving student learning: an exploratory study in an inclusive fourth grade classroom. techtrends 59(2), 32-39, 2015 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 11 modifications to pheromone traps to improve efficiency in trapping plodia interpunctella (lepidoptera: pyralidae) iliyasu mohammed utono1, kabiru kaka aliyu2, alan cork3 abstract this study was conducted to evaluate the effect of pheromone trap modification on the catch of male plodia interpunctella. laboratory experiments were conducted comparing pairs of different trap designs, each having different modifications, to determine the effect on moths catches moths catch of standard funnel trap compared with a sticky delta trap was not significantly different (p>0.05). delta trap modified with windows cut (12cm long x 7cm height) on the sides panel of trap proved to significantly caught more moths than the funnel trap (p<0.05). changing a lure position within the modified delta trap from a suspended position to one directly on the sticky surface significantly increased moth catches (p<0.05). when the same two lure positions were compared in terms of the time elapsed between moths entering and eventually being trapped, it was found that trap with lure on the sticky surface caught moths more quickly than the other lure position (p<0.05). in the comparison of three traps heights, a modified delta trap placed on the cage floor proved to significantly catch more moths than the other two traps height. the results presented here recommended modified delta trap for use in the field. key words: plodia interpunctella; pheromone trap; lure; optimization, searching time 1 college of agriculture, nigeria, imutono@yahoo.com 2 agricultural research council of nigeria 3 natural resources institute (nri), uk american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction the pyralid moths such as plodia interpunctella is an important pest of stored grain and other food industries that causes a great damage and losses to the stored food (gwinner et al., 1990; trdan et al., 2010). early detection and obtaining other valuable information that can lead to a successful management of storage pests depend on the efficiency of monitoring techniques used (white, 2011). hence, effective pests monitoring devices are required for a successful storage pests management. pheromone traps baited with synthetic pheromone of p. interpunctella and ephestia species have been used in monitoring to provide considerable valuable information about these storage species (nansen et al., 2006; witzgall et al., 2010). however, the effectiveness of trap baited with pheromone in monitoring depends on many factors such as lure characteristics (manken et al.1980; nansen and phillips, 2004), trap positioning, trap height and trap designs (mullen et al., 1998; nansen et al., 2004) which may influenced the ability of traps to attract and retain moths. different insect species respond differently to different trap designs and it is as a result of this, foster et al. (1991) and phillip and wyatt (1992) recommended the need to study the behaviour of a pest insect before designing or applying a trap system for its monitoring and control. for instance, foster et al. (1995) had observed that male ctenopseustis obliquanna approach delta traps by flying in a wide zigzag just around the top narrow end of the trap, resulting in a low catch. the response and approach behaviours were found to be different when the top barrier of the trap was removed and the design was changed to a rectangular shape which resulted to greater male catch. foster and muggleston (1993) found that increase in length of a trap by increasing the size area of sticky surface influenced the behaviours by which male epiphyas postvittana enter and exit from trap. the response and approaches may be different with other species. hence this may indicates that a minor change on trapping system could affect its catching efficiency (phillips et al., 1992; vanryckeghem, 2011). the approach and entrance of p. interpunctella to a pheromone trap were found to be highly influenced by a trap physical surface which stimulated a landing plat form (nansen et al., 2004). cork et al. (2003) noted that modifying a delta trap lading plat form to have more entry window to increased moths entry and catch efficiency of the trap. however since moths attracted moved more directly to the pheromone source; this modification may resulted to a moth used the same entry window to fly out without being trapped; a factor that may reduce the trapping efficiency. this research, therefore, presents a work done with p. interpunctella to investigate effect of creating a window on entry and catch of p. interpunctella with a delta trap and also to evaluate the effect of the window on escape of the moths from trap. the overall aim is to explore how to maximise catch efficiency of p. interpunctella using a sticky delta trap. a bioassay was developed and tested in the laboratory, where the behavioural responses of p. interpunctella to different trap designs and positions were observed. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 12 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology materials and methods p. interpunctella culture the p. interpunctella culture was obtained from ian baxter, from a culture held at the university of southampton, and which originated from the danish pest infestation laboratory at lyngby, denmark. the culture was reared in 2.5 l glass jar at the nri insectary on organic whole wheat flour, glycerol and yeast in the ratio 10:2:1 respectively, in total amounts of approximately 200g. the cultures were maintained at a constant room temperature of 26oc, and relative humidity of 50%, and the light period was 12hrs (00:00hrs-12:00hrs). pupae production and sexing after eggs developed to larvae, the larvae were allowed to develop for some days before they became fully matured and 4 – 5 rolled strips of corrugated paper (18  3 cm) were placed in the jar for pupation. seven to ten days later, the larvae began to develop into pupae, which were removed on a daily basis for sexing and bioassay. sexing of pupae was done using a stereo light microscope (leitz wetzlar, germany, 16-x magnification). sexes were examined to determine the morphology of the terminal abdominal segments, which distinguished the two sexes. the sexed pupae (male) were put into separate dishes, which were labelled with the name and symbol of the sex and kept in a separate room to prevent experimental males from becoming habituated to pheromone when they emerged as adults. later, the emerged male adults were taken to the bioassay room for experiments. the same room condition was used as in the culture room. trap design and modification used the trap designs used for the experiment are standard plastic funnel uni-traps (11.5cm and 3cm top and base diameters and 18cm height of insect collector, 2cm height in between the top of the insect collector and the roof of the trap, agrisense bcs ltd, uk); sticky delta trap (20 x 21cm base and 28 x 15cm sides, agrisense bcs ltd, uk). about two modifications were made to the delta trap just to improve the catching efficiency of the trap: 1. by cutting a rectangular shape hole (12cm long x 7cm height) on both sides of the trap panel, 2. lure position was changed from being suspended 4cm from the centre of the top of the trap (conventional method) to the bottom of the trap surface at the centre of the sticky surface. bioassay experiments different bioassay experiments were performed to assess the efficiency of the different trap designs and medication on moth catches. the first experiment (figure1) was comparison of different trap designs (funnel trap and delta trap). this was to test the ability of the two traps to trap male p. interpunctella. in the second experiment (figure 2), comparison was made between standard funnel ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 13 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology trap, un-modified delta trap and modified delta trap to assess the effect of modification on trapping efficiency. the third experiment (figure 3) was conducted to assess the effect of window cut on the two sides of the trap panel on moths catches; and change in the position of lure (lure suspended from the top on the centre of the trap and lure at the bottom surface of the trap on the centre of sticky surface) on the moths entry to the trap and time eventually trapped. the parameters assessed were number of visit and searching time before the moths were eventually trapped. in the fourth experiment (figure 4) comparison were made for height, to assess the correct position for placing modified trap. a wire frame (90cm long x 45cm height x 45cm width) stretched over with a transparent polythene bag placed on top of a laboratory bench was used as the experimental cage. the traps were compared by placing one of each in the cage, at either side of the cage opposite to each other at a distance of 40cm in between. except when indicated otherwise i.e. for the height experiment, where traps were placed at equal heights within the cages. for each experiment, this arrangement was run in triplicate, over three successive days, i.e. making nine replicates in all. each time the position of the trap in each cage was varied randomly. each time 30-40 males of between 1-2 days old were released into the cages from the centre (in the morning) and the number trapped in each trap was recorded after 8 hours. un-trapped males were removed daily. to evaluate the effect of trap modification on moths entry, escape and searching time i.e. the number of visit to the trap and the time taken by the moth from the time it entered the trap (start searching) and the time it was eventually trapped, the cage was partitioned into two (each measured 45cm long x 45cm height x 45cm width). each modified trap with differing lure position was placed in the centre of each cage. each time one 1-2 day old moth was released from the centre of the cage. observation was made and recorded simultaneously on the number of visit to the trap, number trapped and time taken searching for the phenomenon source before eventually trapped. this was repeated ten times with the assistance of two colleagues. pheromone lures were rubber septa containing 0.1mg of p. interpunctella pheromone blend, z9, e12 – 14:ac (nri, uk); they were suspended 8cm above the trap bottom in a central position. except when indicated otherwise i.e. in the experiment on lure positioning, lure position was varied upside-down to the bottom of the trap at the middle of the sticky surface. lures were changed in every experiment. chisquare test was used to compare and test the difference in mean number of insects entering each trap design and independent t-test (unrelated) for data from number of moths visit to the trap and searching time. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 14 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology figure 1: comparing catch of two standard traps figure 2: funnel trap and modified delta trap figure 3: comparing traps with differing lure ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 15 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology figure 4: comparing catch of trap at three position heights results in the comparison of two trap designs (standard funnel trap and sticky delta trap), the result in (table 4.1) shows that delta trap caught higher number of male moths than the funnel trap. however, the difference in catches between the two traps was found not to be statistically significant (χ2 = 0.89, df = 1, p > 0.35), suggesting that both traps were equally capable of catching moths. the second experiment compared captures by a modified delta trap (with two side windows) with those in a standard funnel trap. in contrast to the first experiment the result given in table 4.2 shows that moth caught in the modified delta trap were significantly greater than in the standard funnel trap (χ2 = 4.48, d.f = 1, p < 0.03). thus, change in the shape of delta trap can significantly improve catches. the result in table 4.3 shows that, change in the position of a lure within a trap can significantly affect moth catches. the trap with lure placed directly on a sticky surface significantly caught more moths than the trap with lure suspended above a sticky surface (χ2 = 4.84, d.f = 1, p < 0.028). in association with this experiment we further evaluated the effect of lure position on the number of visit to a trap and time between the moths entering the trap and the time it was eventually stuck to the sticky surface, this being considered as ‘searching time’. the result in table 4.4 shows that more moths significantly visited trap with suspended lure than trap with lure on the sticky surface (t=2.74, df=18, p<0.01). in addition the result shows that it took a moth an average of 18.6 seconds before becoming stuck to the adhesive substance in the trap with suspended lure, which was significantly longer than in trap with lure on the sticky surface (12.3 seconds) (t=2.104, df=18, p<0.04), which emphasized the importance of closeness of attracting substance to the trapping material. in testing the best position for placing the modified trap for effective moth detection, the traps were tested on three height positions. the results in table 4.5, shows that traps placed on the cage floor ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 16 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (0.0cm) caught the most moths, while those at the intermediate height of 45cm caught least. these differences were found to be highly significant when subjected to a χ2-test (χ2 = 4.21, d.f =2, p < 0.04). table 4.1. effect of trap designs on catch of male p. interpunctella trap type mean catch per trap per day χ2value p value funnel trap 7 0.89 0.35 delta trap 11 mean number of male p. interpunctella caught per trap design, n=30 males released in three replicates over each of three days. a significant difference between the catches of each trap was attained when p < 0.05. χ2 and p values are those calculated for a 2  2 goodness of fit test, with one degree of freedom, where the null hypothesis is an equal distribution of captures in the two traps. table 4.2 effect of trap modification on catch male p. interpunctella trap type mean catch per trap per day χ2value pvalue funnel trap 8 4.48 0.034 modified delta trap 19 mean number of male p. interpunctella caught per trap design, n=40 males released in three replicates over each of three days. a significant difference between the catches of each trap was attained when p < 0.05. χ2 and p values are those calculated for a 2  2 goodness of fit test, with one degree of freedom, where the null hypothesis is an equal distribution of captures in the two traps table 4.3 effect of changing position of lure in the modified delta trap on catch of p. interpunctella lure position in modified delta trap mean catch per trap per day χ2value pvalue suspended lure 7 4.84 0.028 on sticky surface 23 mean number of male p. interpunctella caught per trap with deferring lure position, n=40 males released in three replicates over each of three days. table 4.4 indicates difference in mean of number of moths visit to the trap and time taken searching for the pheromone source between two modified delta trap with different lure position position of lure in the trap lure suspended lure on sticky surface mean ± se mean±se t-value p-value numb of visit to trap 2.7 ± 0.33 1.5 ± 0.22 2.104 0.04 searching time (seconds) 18.6 ± 2.79 12.3 ± 1.06 2.74 0.01 mean± se number of male p. interpunctella showing difference in number of visit and searching time to a trap with differing lure position. p and t values are those calculated for an independent t-test (variance not equal) analysis at n=10. significant difference between the two mean was attained when p < 0.05 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 17 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 4.5 effect of trap height on catch of male p. interpunctella trap height (cm) moth catch χ2 value pvalue 0.0 18 4.21 0.040 45 4 90 10 mean number of male p. interpunctella caught per trap height, n=40 males released in three replicates over each of three days. a significant difference between the catches of each trap was attained when p < 0.05. discussions pheromone traps, are valuable tools in monitoring and control of stored product pests (nansen et al., 2006; witzgall et al., 2010). however, effectiveness of pheromone traps catch is affected by many factors notably; trap designs, which often influenced the kind of approach of insect to a trap (foster et al., 1995; vanryckeghem (2011). the result of this research demostrated that modifying a pheromone trap can significantly improve moth catches. our results shows that both standard delta and funnel traps have equal chance of catching male p. interpunctella. however when two same size windows were created on the both sides of delta trap, the moth caught in the modified delta trap were significantly different from the catch in standard funnel trap. this correspond with the finding of cork et al. (2003) working on trap optimization for the brinjal shoot and fruit borer, leucinodes orbonalis. they observed that changing the shape of a delta trap by creation of two small windows increased l. orbonalis catches more than the other trap designs tested. although it is quite true that trap modification can increase moths catch, however, creation of windows on the side of traps seemed to create chance for the moths to escape. this was exactly noted during this experiment when some of the moths that entered the trap escaped after a few seconds of searching. a phenomenon that cork et al. (2003) did not looked at and addressed. hence devising a means which can reduced, if not prevent the moth from escaping through these holes, could add more to the catch efficiency of the modified trap. to do this we hypothesize that entry windows created close to the pheromone source allowed moth easy movement in and out to the trap; therefore change in the lure position which serves as the source of attractant close to the trapping materials could enhance the catch efficiency of the trap. hence the position of the lure used was changed to directly on the sticky surface, such that when moths were attracted to the lure their chances of being trapped by the glue could be increased. therefore a high catch obtained in the trap with lure on the sticky surface could be due to the closeness of the pheromone source to the glue substance. in the trap with suspended lure, the moths had a higher probability of searching round for the pheromone source without contacting the sticky surface and then easily escape. the result for number of visits to the trap and searching time by the moths to the trap with different lure position suggested that moths visited trap with suspended lure more often than trap with lure on ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 18 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the sticky surface. however trap with lure on the sticky surface proved to trap moths more quickly than when it was suspended within the trap. in a trap with suspended lure, pheromone source was more close to the landing plat form and will more readily be dispersed to all directions, thus improving the probability of attracting moths to the vicinity of the trap. this can be interpreted to mean that in both cases, moths went directly to the pheromone source, but because the glue was closer to the lure in one case, they were captured more quickly. to evaluate the correct position for placing traps in a store for best moth catch, the modified trap placed at three heights within the bioassay cage demonstrated more moths catch at lower height. this finding is in common with that of nansen et al. (2004) who found that placing a diamond trap near the ceiling or near the ground in a warehouse gave the best catch. the low catches by traps placed at height of 45cm could be due to the influence of competition from the other traps, where as each of the upper and lower traps only had one competing neighbour. some weak moths, which cannot fly are drawn by the pheromone and can crawl down to trace the pheromone source. this could explain the high catches in traps at 0.0cm. the laboratory experiment with modified delta traps with lure positioned on the stick surface proved to be effective in quickly identifying and catching male p. interpunctella, which may be a useful tool for monitoring. however it is highly recommended a similar trap should be tested in storage to validate the efficacy of the trap with these new modifications. references cork, a., alam, s.n f., rouf, m.a. and talekar, n.s. (2003). female sex pheromone of brinlal fruit and shoot borer, leucinode orbonalis (lepidoptera: pyralidae): trap optimization and applications in ipm trials. bulletin of entomological research 93, 107-113. foster, s.p., ayers, r.h. and muggleston, s.j. (1995). trapping and sex pheromone mediated flight and landing behaviour of male ctenopseustis obliquana. entomologia experimentalis et applicata 74, 125-135. foster, s.p., muggleston, s.j. and ball, r.d. (1991). behavioural responses of male epiphyas postvittana (walker) to sex pheromone baited delta trap in a wind tunnel. journal of chemical ecology 17, 1449-1468. foster, s.p., muggleston, s.j. (1993). effect of design of a sex pheromone baited delta trap on behaviour and catch of male epiphyas postvittana (walker). journal of chemical ecology 19, 26172633. gwinner, j., harnisch, r. and mück, o. (1990). manual on the prevention of postharvest grains losses, post harvest project, pickhuben 4, d-2000 hamburg. 294pp. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 19 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology howse, p. e., sevens i.d.r. and jonies, o.t. (1998). insects pheromones and their uses in pest management. chapman and hal, london, 369pp. mankin, r.w., vick, k.w., mayer m.s. and coffelt, j.a. (1980). anemotactic response threshold of the indian meal moth, plodia interpunctella (hubner) (lepidoptera: pyralidae) to its sex pheromone. journal of chemical ecology 6, 919-929. mullen, m.a., wileyto, e.p. and arthur, f.h. (1998). influence of trap design and location on the capture of plodia interpunctella (lepidoptera: pyralidae) in a releaserecapture study. journal of stored products research 34 (1), 33-36. nansen, c., phillips, t.w., morton, p.k. and bonjour, e.l. (2006). spatial analysis of pheromonebaited trap captures from controlled releases of male indianmeal moths. environmental entomology 35, 516-523. nansen, c., phillips, t. w. and sanders, s. (2004). effects of height and adjacent of surfaces on captures of indian meal moth (lepidoptera: pyralidae) in pheromone baited traps. journal of economic entomology 97 (4), 1284-1290. phillip, a.d.g. and wyatt, t.d. (1992). beyond origami: using behavioural observations as a strategy to improve trap designs. entomology experimentalis et applcata 62, 67-74. savoldelli, s. (2004). evaluation of the efficacy of different kinds of pheromone traps for the monitoring of plodia interpunctella (lepidoptera: pyralidae). bulletin oilb/srop 27 (9), 103-108. trdan, s., kač, m., vidrih, m. and laznik, z. (2010). seasonal dynamics of three lepidopteran stored grain pests in slovenia. the 10th international working conference on stored products protection. julius-kühn-archiv 425, 197-201. vanryckeghem, a. (2011). pheromones: a resourceful tool in modern urban pests management. in: dhang, p. (ed.). urban pest management: an environmental perspective. cabi international, uk, 175pp. white, a.l.m. (2011). population dynamics of stored-product insects at a rice mill in northeast arkansas. arkansas state university. arkansas, 130pp. witzgall, p., kirsch, p. and cork, a. (2010). sex pheromone and their impact on pest management. chemical ecology 36, 80-100. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 2, issue. 1 20 penetrometer calibration american journal 2.docx kasali, m.y1, o.o. olla1, d. james1 and m.b. makanjuola1 and i.e. ahaneku2 abstract cone penetrometers standardized by american standards for agricultural engineering (asae) have been major instruments for investigating and quantifying soil compaction. however, the continuous use of penetrometers often introduces errors to the cone index (ci) readings obtained from the instruments over time. an asae calibrated digital cone penetrometer and a manual penetrometer were tested on a sandy clay loamy soil at the national centre for agricultural mechanization (ncam), ilorin, nigeria; using the asae small cone. the ci readings obtained for the two penetrometers were subjected to a statistical t-test. the results showed that the sensitivity of the manual cone penetrometer is comparable to that of the digital penetrologger at depths greater than 12cm as the mean difference showed no significant difference at this depth. however, at depths 0-11cm, there was significant difference in their mean difference; this shows the relative insensitivity of the manual cone penetrometer. the calibration results also showed that the continuous use of the manual cone penetrometer will require a multiplying factor of 1.165 to get a ci reading close to ideal. improvement on the manual cone penetrometer will also assist in obtaining ci readings after tillage operations. keywords: cone penetrometer, soil compaction, asae small cone, calibration. introduction soil compaction is the process by which the soil grains are re-arranged to decrease void space and bring them into closer contact with one another, thereby decreasing the bulk density (sssa, 1996). the major contributor to forming soil compaction is various loads applied to the surface of unsaturated soils. soil compaction is one of the paramount information required for effective soil and crop management, and for terrain trafficability. it affects crop production by limiting potential yield and trafficability by limiting the potential traction. regions of high mechanical resistance in the soil may result from natural soil features, heavy agricultural machinery traffic, or the formation 3. national centre for agricultural mechanization, p.m.b. 1525, ilorin. 4. dept. of agric. and bioresources engineering, federal university of tech., minna american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 1. national centre for agricultural mechanization, p.m.b. 1525, ilorin. 2. dept. of agric. and bioresources engineering, federal university of tech., minna. calibration of a manual cone penetrometer using a digital penetrologger of tillage implement pans. thus soil quality must be determined and analyzed in order to increase crop productivity and trafficability (boon et al., 2005). bradford (1986) in his work asserted that soil mechanical strength is an important soil parameter that affects root growth and water movement, and controls nutrient and contaminant transport below the rooting zone. the most common way to assess soil strength is by using a soil penetrometer, which characterizes the force needed to drive a cone of specific size into the soil moreover, quantitative assessment of soil compaction is necessary to determine its severity and to identify suitable mechanical, chemical or biological methods of intervention recommended for ameliorating or controlling soil compaction. many studies have been conducted to understand the influence of bulk density (ρ) and water content (θ) on pr in the laboratory (taylor and gardner, 1963; mirreh and ketcheson, 1972; ayers and perumpal, 1982; ayers and bowen, 1987; ohu et al. 1988) and field (simmons and cassel, 1989; vasquez et al. 1991, busscher et al. 1997, cited in carlos, m.p.z (2003), from which both empirical and theoretical relationships were obtained. several indirect methods exist to measure soil compaction that rely on either increase in soil strength (i.e. mechanical impedance to penetrating objects) or reduction in interconnected pore spaces (hemmat and adamchuk, 2008, cited in mojtaba et al, 2009). penetration resistance of soil can be measured with penetrometer. the penetrometer consists of a cone mounted on a rod that is pushed into the soil; penetration force is measured and recorded. for manual penetrometer, the metal rod pushed into the soil contains spring and an analogue readout that shows the corresponding resistance to motion in millipaska (mpa). the rod is graduated with 0-7, 7-14 and 14-21 marks to indicate depth of penetration with corresponding resistance to motion of instrument. on the other hand, the digital penetrometer consists of the long rod pushed into the ground and a digital scale that displays both the penetration depth and the penetration force to give the cone index (ci) of the soil, which is calculated by dividing the force by the cross-sectional area of the cone. penetration resistance is widely measured because it provides an easy and rapid method of assessing soil strength. calibration is a measurement process that assigns values to the property of an artifact or to the response of an instrument relative to reference standards or to a designated measurement process. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 41 instrument calibration is intended to eliminate or reduce bias in an instrument’s reading over a range for all continuous values. a functional relationship is then established between the values of the standards and the corresponding measurement. two standard cone sizes have been recommended by asae (asae standard s313.3, 2006) that the large size cone is often used in tractor-mounted penetrometers, and the small size in hand-pushed penetrometers. amount of ci can be affected by the cone size and geometry. the problem of providing metrological centers with standards (standard specimens) of a prescribed class of accuracy is one of current interest. as was mentioned in ermishin, izmerit (2000), most of the equipment we use, both in the field and in the laboratory might be having some degree of errors over some long period of use without calibration. therefore, calibration enables the determination of the degree of error in the instrument, i.e. cone penetrometer. therefore, the specific objectives of this research include (i) calibration of the manual cone penetrometer with the digital penetrologger, (ii) determination of the error, if any in the manual cone penetrometer and finding ways of improving the manual cone penetrometer. materials and methods fig. 1: digital cone penetrometer manual cone penetrometer in use a hand-pushed penetrometer with asae small cone and an eijkelkamp (p1.52) digital penetrologger with the same cone type were used for this study. the two equipment were used on an untilled soil plot of length 50m and width 25m. tillage practices were carried out on the plot of land in the direction of previous operation (asae standard ep542). other soil properties such as soil type, moisture content, bulk density were also determined under each condition. soil type was determined using sieve method of soil classification, while the gravimetric method of soil moisture content determination was employed. the bulk density was determined using the core volume of the core sampler. in each of these processes, samples were collected in transparent nylon and duly labeled. five points were randomly selected on the experimental plot, ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 42 5 insertions each was carried out for both untilled and tilled soil plot, respectively. an 85 horsepower 2-wheel tractor was used to carry out ploughing and harrowing tillage operations, respectively and all soil properties earlier determined for the control was also carried out after the tillage operations. penetration curves for the two penetrometers were plotted and standard statistical packages such as mean and standard deviation was used to determine the extend of deviation from actual reading of the penetrometer. calibration of the manual penetrometer was done using the sensitive eijkelkamp penetrologger; this will assist in ameliorating the defects of the penetrometer, if any. bulk density determination soil bulk density was calculated using the equation below: ( 1)𝐵𝑢𝑙𝑘 𝐷𝑒𝑛𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝐵𝐷( ) = 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 (𝑔) 𝑉𝑜𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 (𝑐𝑚3) soil moisture determination moisture content of soil samples were determined gravimetrically using the equation below: (2)𝑀𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑛𝑡 %( ) = 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑚𝑜𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑠𝑎𝑚𝑝𝑙𝑒 𝑀𝑎𝑠𝑠 𝑜𝑓 𝑑𝑟𝑦 𝑠𝑜𝑖𝑙 𝑥 100 results and discussion table 1: soil bulk density (g/cm3) with depth for both tilled and untilled soil. soil depth before ploughing operation after ploughing operation before harrowing operation after harrowing operation 0-7 cm 1.452 1.131 1.344 1.262 7-14 cm 1.532 1.410 1.332 1.440 14-21 cm 1.151 1.620 1.410 1.630 the soil type test revealed a sandy clay loam soil type for the plot used in this experiment. bulk density of the soil was determined gravimetrically and the behavior of the soil bulk density with depth is as shown in table 1. the figure indicated a slight increase in bulk density from 1.45g/cm3 to 1.53 g/cm3 and further decrease to 1.51g/cm3. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 43 fig. 3:moisture percentage with depth for both tilled and untilled soil. moisture content was taken for soil depths, 0-20cm; five replications of this were taken. the variation of the soil moisture relative to depth is as shown in figure 3. the figure indicated that the average moisture for the different depths was highest for untilled soil and increased with depth. the moisture content of the soil after ploughing operation initially decreased to a depth of 14cm and rose with depth to 21 cm depth. moisture before harrowing operations was similar to that before ploughing operations as it increased with depth, though more steady and with relatively lower values, while after harrowing operation, moisture percentage rose steadily with depth, though relatively with much lower values. fig. 4: cone index of penetrometers relative to depth before ploughing operation penetration (in mpa) recorded for the two penetrometers (fig.4) shows that the digital penetrometer gives higher values for every depth of penetration taken. for most of the readings taken for the manual cone penetrometer, initial ci values usually for depths 0-3cm could not be obtained like that of the sensitive digital penetrologger. fig. 4 also shows that the ci obtained for ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 44 the digital penetrologger increased initially from 0.96 mpa at 4cm soil depth to 1.35 mpa at 6cm depth and started falling until it reached 1.25 mpa at 10cm depth. it increased sharply to 1.51 mpa at 12cm depth and later fell to 1.13 mpa at 16 cm depth. it later increased to 1.23 and later to 1.28 at depth 20 cm. this behavior may not be unconnected with the soil bulk density data earlier obtained for the soil depths; the bulk density increased from 1.45 to 1.53 g/cm3, therefore required greater force for penetration for depths 0-14 cm (for untilled soil). the latter increase from about 16cm depth may not be unconnected with an increase in the moisture content at this depth (fig. 3). table 2: descriptive statistics of the two penetrometers before tillage operations soil depth device n mean std. error mean 0-4cm digital reading 5 0.9620 0.16865 manual reading 5 0.3460 0.13534 5-6cm digital reading 5 1.3500 0.08820 manual reading 5 0.6040 0.11232 7-8cm digital reading 5 1.2760 0.04366 manual reading 5 0.7440 0.09130 9-10cm digital reading 5 1.2540 0.04739 manual reading 5 0.9500 0.07071 11-12cm digital reading 5 1.5120 0.09505 manual reading 5 1.2000 0.07583 13-14cm digital reading 5 1.2380 0.04705 manual reading 5 1.2760 0.11369 15-16cm digital reading 3 1.1267 0.06360 manual reading 3 1.2833 0.04410 17-18cm digital reading 3 1.2267 0.04631 manual reading 3 1.1833 0.06009 1920cm digital reading 2 1.2800 0.04000 manual reading 2 1.2750 0.12500 ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 45 table 3: independent t test for the penetrometer soil depth t df sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% c. i of mean difference lower upper 0-4cm 2.849 8 0.022 0.61600 0.21624 0.11735 1.11465 5-6cm 5.224 8 0.001 0.74600 0.14281 0.41667 1.07533 7-8cm 5.257 8 0.001 0.53200 0.10120 0.29863 0.76537 9-10cm 3.571 8 0.007 0.30400 0.08512 0.10770 0.50030 11-12cm 2.566 8 0.033 0.31200 0.12159 0.03161 0.59239 13-14cm -0.309 8 0.765 -0.03800 0.12304 -0.32174 0.24574 15-16cm -2.024 4 0.113 -0.15667 0.07739 -0.37153 0.05820 17-18cm 0.571 4 0.598 0.04333 0.07587 -0.16730 0.25397 19 20cm 0.038 2 0.973 0.00500 0.13124 -0.55970 0.56970 statistically, the t-test and descriptive statistics in tables 2 and 3 show that there was significant differences between the ci means for the digital penetrologger and the manual penetrometer with respect to depths 0-12cm; but thereafter, there was no significant difference in their means. this indicates that the sensitivity of the manual penetrometer is comparable to that of the penetrologger at depths greater than 12cm. fig. 5: penetrometers’ sensitivity after ploughing operation ci values could not be obtained for most of the insertions after tillage operations for the manual cone penetrometer; this may not be unconnected to its relative insensitivity (see fig.5). on the ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 46 other hand, the manual cone penetrometer reading showed no response initially, but had a continual increase in ci value of 0.35 mpa at depth 4cm to a ci value of 1.28 mpa at depth 16 cm. it later fell slightly to 1.18 mpa at depth 18cm and rose again to 1.28 mpa at depth 20 cm. instrument calibration fig. 6: calibration curve due to the inconsistency in the ci obtained from the manual cone penetrometer after tillage operations; the ci obtained before tillage operations was utilized in the calibration exercise. a quadratic fit to the ci data obtained for the penetrometer produces the calibration curve given as dp = 0.71358 + 1.1249mp – 0.050381mp2 r = 60.8% (0.12801) (0.31844) (0.18520) where dp = cone index (ci) for digital penetrologger. the correlation coefficient (r) shows a strong significant relationship between the calibrated curves. for a future measurement of ci using the manual cone penetrometer, for every manual penetrometer reading as 1.15, the reference digital penetrologger will read 1.34, i.e. for mp = 1.15, dp = 1.34 (see fig. 6) ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 47 conclusion the results showed that the manual cone penetrometer has lost some degree of sensitivity and may need to be repaired. however, the t-test result indicates that the sensitivity of the manual penetrometer is comparable to that of the penetrologger at depths greater than 12cm. the continuous use of the penetrometer will require a multiplying factor of 1.165 to get a reading close to ideal. improvement on the manual cone penetrometer will also assist in obtaining ci reading after tillage operations. acknowledgement the authors gratefully acknowledge the sponsorship of the research work by the executive director and management of the national centre for agricultural mechanization (ncam). we are also grateful to prof. adewumi, a.o. for his helpful comments, suggestions and guidance at various stages of this study which made this research work a huge success. the collaborative efforts of the statistician, mr aduba joseph are duly recognized. unparallel dedication of the industrial attachment students, especially mr. sunday fagbemi is also commended. tractor drivers and tractor mechanics, especially mr. fatai ogundero’s effort to see this work done is highly recognized. references asae standards. (2006). soil cone penetrometer, asae s313.3asae st. joseph, mi 49805. asae standards. (2006). procedure for using and reporting data obtained with the cone penetrometer asae standard ep542 feb99. asabe st. joseph, mi 449805. boon, n.e., yahya, a., kheiralla, a.f., wee, b.s. and gew, s.k. (2005). a tractor mounted, automated soil penetrometer-shearometer unit for mapping soil mechanical properties. biosystems engineering 90(4): 381-396. bradford,j.m. (1986). the penetration resistance in a soil with well defined structural units. soil science society america journal 44(3): 601-606. carlos, manoel pedro vaz. (2003, march 3-21). use of a combined penetrometer-tdr moisture probe for soil compaction studies. retrieved 13/07/2012 from http://users.ictp.it/~pub_off/lectures/ ins018/37vaz1.pdf. ermishin s., izmerit, (2000). m,. tekh., 2 (11). hemmat, a. and adamchuk, v.i. (2008). sensor systems for measuring soil compaction: review and analysis. computers and electronics in agriculture 63: 89-103. sssa (soil science society of america). (1996). glossary of soil science terms, sssa, madson, wi, usa. ajaset, issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), vol. 1, issue 1 48 http://users.ictp.it/~pub_off/lectures/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 30 traffic control patching and security solution in iot afridi shahid1, md. alam hossain1*, nazmul hossain1 abstract after connecting multiple devices to a network and possessing data analysis and excerpting, the iot is awaited to contribute to the formation of new customer value. critical infrastructure that gets into people’s lives and economic deeds will also become an area, in which way the iot is used, so security measures for iot systems are very important. on the other hand, a dramatic increase in the number of connected devices will create technical problems such as attacks with a broader scope of influence and attacks that last longer. so, a shortage of security operations administrators will also be a problem. the internet of things refers to a way of connecting objects to the internet for the purpose of intelligent control and management. the objects are sensed through rfid (radio-frequency identification) or sensors achieving the integration of human society and the information system. rfid is the core technology to implement the internet of things. so the security issue of rfid is becoming more and more important, in the past decade, a large number of research papers dealing with security issues of rfid technology have appeared. this paper deals with the security of data of rfid as iot devices and defence against malware attacks, and ddos attacks in iot systems. keywords: security, privacy, cryptographic hardware, iot, system on chip, embedded systems, rfid 1 department of computer science and engineering, jashore university of science and technology (just), bangladesh * corresponding author: e-mail: alam@just.edu.bd introduction internet technology (it) is very pervasive today. the number of digital devices connected to the internet, those with a digital identity, is rapidly increasing day by day. with the developments in the technology, internet of things (iot) become important part of human life. however, it is not well defined and secure. now, various security issues are considered as major problem for a full-fledged iot environment. there exists a lot of security challenges with the proposed architectures and the technologies which make the backbone of the internet of things. some efficient and promising security mechanisms have been developed to secure the iot environment, however, there is a lot to do. the challenges are ever rising and the solutions have to be ever elevating literature summarized the security issues in the internet of things based on rfid, literature paid attention to the privacy models for rfid, literature explained mobile rfid network based on epc and analyzed threats of the mobile rfid system, this is important to create a secure iot architecture, literature analyzed rfid technology and its applications in internet of things (iot) from different layers, in this paper, we will first introduce the iot based on rfid http://journals.e-palli.com/ mailto:alam@just.edu.bd american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 31 then we analyze the security issues in the iot based on rfid , and on the basis of these, we will give the current countermeasures for the security of rfid data and malware attacks.. rfid system working principles a. system composition as per various applications, rfid frameworks maybe vary from one another on creation components. however, fundamentally, rfid framework is formed by tag, peruser and information trade and the executives framework. electronic tag is created by coupling part and chip containing security rationale. b. working principle as a serious programmed recognizable proof innovation, rfid actualizes non-contact full duplex information interchanges through rf to get target things distinguished. rfid label comprises of chip and radio wire and each label highlights exceptional item code. rfid framework can communicate information among transponder and sensor handset. the accompanying figure shows working guideline of rfid framework. figure 1: rfid working principle when rfid framework is working, rf signals with a specific recurrence are initial communicated by peruser through recieving wire. as rfid label enters peruser's working field, the recieving wire will communicate actuated current so that rfid label will catch vitality that will be enacted to send their own code data to peruser. with regards to inactive frameworks, peruser will communicate rf signals at a specific recurrence through coupling segments. when rfid enters this field, vitality will be gotten through coupling segments to drive chips and peruser for correspondences. after peruser peruses self-coded data, it'll send it to information trade and the board framework. with regards to dynamic framework, after label enters peruser working region, installed battery will flexibly control so as to finish correspondences with peruser. http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 32 the internet of things based on rfid figure 2: structure of iot in the web of things dependent on rfid, rfid peruser is liable for gathering through this epc code the middleware framework can discover relating ip address from the ons foundation on the web, consequently the important data of the article can be gotten from this location. at that point the middleware framework (savant framework) can measure and deal with the data. in this cycle there are neighborhood ons worker, nearby pml worker and far off pml worker which are responsible for information stockpiling, as appeared in the figure 2. security issues correspondence security treats a) wireless correspondence chances in rfid framework remote correspondence is received between the rfid perusers and rfid labels. because of the receptiveness of the remote signs, it is simple for an assailant to look, capture, screen, and jam remote correspondence signals. so encryption and confirmation are expected to secure the remote transmission between the rfid perusers and rfid labels. b) wired correspondence hazards between the rfid perusers and the middleware framework, information transmission is through the web. much the same as customary organization association, a sequential of safety efforts will be received for guaranteeing the information classification and honesty, and the typical organization association. c) denial of service (dos) in both of remote and wired correspondence, there are denial of service (dos) . when assailants control countless phony perusers and labels, they can make the information d) network evasdropping organization listening in is an organization layer assault that centers around catching little bundles from the organization communicated by different pcs and perusing the information content looking for a data. this sort of organization assault is commonly one of the best as an absence of encryption administrations are utilized http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 33 decryption encryption text read the data card table 1: security target and solution security target security solution iot devices privacy protection blocking anti-interference data coding data coding and data integrity communication process wireless communication risks(search, intercept, monitor, and jam wireless communication signals) the openness of the wireless signals wired communication risks the openness of the internet denial of service (dos) malicious attackers network eavesdropping encryption existing system system 1: the card was read by the reader. the read information was encrypted by our encrypted software and this information will save to the cloud memory. when the raw information was needed, then only the administrator, who knew the decrypted private key could get the original information. as a result, the information of the card could not be theft through an unauthenticated person. beside no one could duplicate the card and the authenticated card holder remains save from social engineering attack. it also helped the administrator that the information will save in the cloud memory with instant time. so administrator calculates the number of the uses of the card with exact time. des algorithm is used in this system. the procedere of methodology are depicted as follows. figure 3: des algorithm this previous methodology could give the new technology some important security related in iot. but it was unable to give the strong security that today’s life need, because of the popularities of iot. besides this technology left the discussion of traffic control of data which has a major impact in encryption and decryption system. in this paper, those problems are tried to solve through acceptable performances. system 2: there are some iot data transfer algorithm was introduced in past such as rst-iot hct-iot .these algorithms are based on spanning tree theory. http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 34 number of devices avrg. data size (kb) rst-iot hct-iot des-iot 20 512 5.6 5.53 1.6 40 1024 8.1 7.9 3.2 60 2048 10.9 9.9 5.2 100 3072 13.1 12.8 6.7 figure 4: spanning tree theory hctiot rst-iot comparison all iot des-iot http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 35 methodology when data transfer from rfid tag to destination, at first data will be encrypted for defending data cloning and eavesdropping attack. secondly, different malicious attacks will took place at data passing time are generated by intermediate nodes could be blocked by tcp algorithm. it also control the data traffic or jam to reach the destination traffic control patch algorithm here tpr= packet pass runtime, t= present time, ap= access point, if tpr>t then select malware, generated by intermediate node in descending order based on its power by patched intermediate node (pin) and blocked them in run time else if tpr<t no action is needed when tpr=t always check the ap to control the traffic calculation 1 portrays the nitty gritty strides in fixing stage. with restricted assets and endeavors, the administrator could give a fixed measure of patches on the halfway hubs (e.g., p rate). to ease the spread from the framework connects, the pin most significant middle hubs will be chosen for fixing. it resembles to securing the most significant hub to keep up network power . subsequently, we present the traffic checking span for assessing the significance of fixed halfway hubs. from the observed outcomes, the proposed traffic-control fixing plan sorts the malware in plunging request as per the intensity of traffic volumes, and the top moderate hubs are fixed. self-evident, the proposed volume-based fixing is powerful to the assault which produces countless traffic , e.g., ddos assaults. the fixed middle of the road hubs could forestall the redirection of malignant traffic presented by the ddos assault dispatched by the iot botnets. finally the passage are likewise consistently checked all through the run time for making sure about information passing. table 2: performance evaluation number of devices data size(kb) execution time (per device) 20 512 1.6 sec 40 1024 3.2 sec 60 2048 5.2 sec 100 3072 6.7 sec achitecture an architecture was created in a simulation software (securicad) to implement the proposed network.system.here, i use a router as an iot device. the simulation design is given below http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 36 figure 5: simulation designed in securicad result analysis here necessary security steps are taken against the attack such asddos, eavesdropping, iot device blocking, bypass antimalware, arp cache poisoning, dns spoof, find exploit etc. the output result is given below table 3: security steps against attacks name attack step risk probability risk network arp cash poisioning 0% no network dns spoof 0% no network dos 75% medium router dos 0% no host bypass antimalware 1% no host dos 0% no host find exploit 0% no dataflow eavesdrop 0% no comparison with existing system conparison can be divided into two parts. i) malware attack ii) execution time malware attack previous system prevented only data cloning attack but this methodology prevent other major attacks such as ddos, eavesdropping, iot device blocking, bypass antimalware, arp cache poisoning, dns spoof, find exploit etc. table 4: comparison by attack existing system proposed system data cloning ddos, card cloning eavesdropping social engineering attacks iot device blocking bypass antimalware dns spoof find exploit http://journals.e-palli.com/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2017, volume 1 issue 1 37 execution time: 256 kb, 512 kb, 1 mb, 2 mb,3 mb sizes are taken of data with different number of devices at a single time and find the comparison given below table 5: comparison by execution time data size(kb) execution time des iot (per device) data size(kb) poroposed system’s execution time (per device) 512 2.05 512 1.6 sec 1024 4.05 1024 3.2 sec 2048 6.25 2048 5.2 sec 3072 7.5 3072 6.7 sec figure 6: comparison with existing method above comparison, with security attack and execution time the proposed system shows better feedback than existing. besides it helps to minimize the data traffic by given algorithm. this proposed system creates a new era to iot, giving combination among encryption, defend malware attacks and traffic control. conclusion the iot utilizes an assortment of data detecting id gadget and data preparing hardware, for example, rfid, wsn, gprs, and so on consolidating with the internet to shape a broad organization so as to informationize and intelligentize the substances or articles. this paper dissects the applications and difficulties of rfid innovation, which is the significant and primary part of iot. references an ontology-based context model for wireless sensor network (wsn) management in the internet of things. journal of sensor and actuator networks, 2(4), pp.653-674. 40. al turjman, f. and malekloo, a., 2019. an overview of internet of things (iot) and 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(eds.): spaccs 2017 workshops, lncs 10658, pp. 607–616, 2017. wireless sensor network with perpetual motes for terrestrial snail activity monitoring. ieee sensors journal, 17(15), pp.5008-5015. 44. chieochan, o., saokaew, a. and boonchieng, e., 2017, july. http://journals.e-palli.com/ pa ge 1 pa ge 16 american journal of agricultural science, engineering, and technology (ajaset) crushing power of a corn cob chopping machine for the manufacture of animal feed at the cinagarabogo people’s livestock centre, subang regency, indonesia ferdi fathurohman1*, adhan efendi2 and ridwan baharta1 volume 7 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v7i1.1153 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset article information abstract received: january 03 , 2022 accepted: january 16, 2023 published: january 19, 2023 process of making animal feed at the people’s husbandry centre (spr) cinagarabogo subang regency is one of the producers of ruminant animal feed for cattle. the ruminant feed made from corncob waste is distributed to cattle breeders in subang regency. the manufacture of animal feed made from corn cobs is still done conventionally, so that the fulfilment of ruminant feed needs is often hampered. this study aimed to design a disc mill machine that is used to crush corn cobs. the research method started from observing, sketching, making 2d and 3d designs, and conducting expert validation. based on the research, it can be concluded that the design made has been declared valid with a score of 87% or was in the proper category. further recommendations that the design is feasible to proceed to the manufacturing process. keywords corn cob, disc mill machine, ruminant feed crusher 1 agroindustry department, subang state polytechnic, arif rahman hakimt, subang, west java, indonesia 2 mechanical engineering department, subang state polytechnic, arif rahman hakimt, subang, west java, indonesia * corresponding author’s email: ferdifathurohman@polsub.ac.id introduction since 2005, the indonesian government has planned to be self-sufficient in beef, namely imports of no more than 10% of the total national consumption. however, beef self-sufficiency has not yet been achieved with various problems faced. the alternative to meet the needs of beef consumption is through imports, but the import price is cheaper than the price of local beef, making it a tough competitor for farmers as the main producers of local beef. the development of beef cattle in quantity has had a very real impact on increasing people’s income in improving their welfare. development that still relies on the power of community animal husbandry makes this business in general still managed traditionally. the purpose of maintenance, which is still a side business of farming activities, causes market demand has not become the main consideration for livestock businesses. in these conditions, it is very difficult to encourage the community to achieve an economical business scale in the livestock business (fathurohman et al., 2017). the development of animal husbandry, especially in beef cattle, has been carried out for generations and shows quite good development, including in groups. in general, the community has livestock, especially sheep and beef cattle with the motive of keeping as a side business and for savings, this is very possible because natural conditions, the availability of grass and the attention of the local government to the development of beef cattle are very supportive (fathurohman et al., 2022). the government of the republic of indonesia through the ministry of agriculture in 2015 issued a livestock area program under the name sentra peternakan rakyat or commonly known as spr. spr is an association of smallholder breeders with the aim of realizing different breeders. spr has been formed for about 2 years. there have been many programs implemented by spr ranging from improving group administration, training, and assistance from both the central and local governments. in 2017 the central government’s assistance program for spr was no longer provided, making the programs that had been running less effective (ditjen, 2015) one of the livestock areas in indonesia is the cinagarabogo livestock area of subang regency. for approximately 2 years running a livestock area business, selling through offline and online. according to information obtained from livestock groups belonging to the region, competition in animal husbandry is getting tougher, so breeders are constantly trying to survive and even develop. many organizations are growing rapidly because they can create the right business model. business model canvas (bmc) successfully transforms the concept of a complex business model into a simple one (fathurohman & baharta, 2020) more than 90% of local beef supply comes from smallscale farms, so production efficiency is low or the cost per unit of production is high. if the number of imports is not controlled, it will result in the price of local beef in the market being depressed with cheap import prices so that farmers lose out. if this happens in the long term and with limited capital, it will make farmers not eager to do beef cattle business (widiati, 2014). the development of cattle in quantity has been able to have a very real impact on increasing people’s income in improving their welfare. the development, which is currently still based on the strength of people’s livestock, has made this business managed traditionally. the purpose of maintenance which is still used as a side business from farming activities has caused market demand to have not become the main consideration for livestock business. in this condition, it is very difficult to encourage the community to achieve an economic scale of business in the livestock business (fathurohman, 2019). https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v7i1.1153 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset mailto:ferdifathurohman%40polsub.ac.id?subject= pa ge 17 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 16-20, 2023 literature review the people’s husbandry centre (spr) which was launched in early 2016 is expected to make subang district a national and regional beef supporter, according to the decree of the minister of agriculture. in west java province, out of 27 regencies/cities only four regencies are the sites for spr. of the four districts, in subang there are two sprs and three other areas one spr each. two sprs in subang, namely kasaliang, cover the areas of kasomalang, cisalak, tanjungsiang. then spr cinagarabogo covers the cipunagara and cibogo areas. the people’s husbandry centre (spr) cinagarabogo produces ruminant feed which is then sold publicly to farmers in subang regency. this feed is made manually with corncobs as the main ingredient. generally, the use of a disk mill machine can help the process of making ruminant feed. the disc mill machine has the main function of chopping and crushing grains into flour (efendi & suhartono, 2018). added by the components of the disk mill machine has several main components, namely (1) a hopper, made of iron plate in the shape of an inverted pentagon measuring 27 x 20 x 21 cm, (2) a shell / cage consisting of four rotating blades with a size of 3 x 2 x 2 cm, eight cylindrical knives with a diameter of 1.5 cm, and 24 static knives measuring 2 x 2 x 1.5 cm, (3) one channel for dispensing flour from an iron plate measuring 15 x 6 cm, (4 ) a threephase drive engine with a power of about 2.2 kw, and (5) a transmission system using a belt (rangkuti et al., 2012). the use of disc mill machines is very useful in agriculture and plantations (nandiyanto et al., 2020). added (nandiyanto et al., 2020) disc mill machines are very suitable for crushing foodstuffs in a finer form. the performance of the cutting knife can make the process of refining corncobs more effective for ruminant feed (kruszelnicka et al., 2021). fulfilling the target of making feed for all cattle breeders in the subang area makes it necessary to design a disc mill machine to assist the process of making ruminant feed at spr cinagarabogo. the design is the beginning before the tool enters the manufacturing process (nauval et al., 2018). added (efendi & suhartono, 2019) that the design can be started from a hand sketch which is then described in the autodex inventor application so that an image with 2d and 3d schemes is found. the results of previous research, from (jibrin et al., 2013), concluded that design and manufacturing are very much needed in the process of making an effective corncob crusher machine in agriculture. materials and method this research is a type of development research. data collected through observation and documentation methods. the data were then analysed descriptively qualitatively. the stages of the research are as follows in figure 1. the research stages started from collecting data related to the disc mill machine, which was followed up with figure 1: research stages observations at spr cinagarabogo, then the research team made 2d and 3d sketches through the autodeks inventor application, image validation was carried out by experts, then entered the data analysis stage. result and dicussion study literature and observation the literature study was carried out by the research team in collecting several publications regarding the design of a disc mill machine for corn cobs. then continued with observations at the people’s husbandry centre (spr) cinagarabogo. interviews were conducted with the head of the spr to seek information regarding the need for tools that can assist the process of making ruminant feed there. the research team saw sheet consisting of detailed design drawings, materials, sizes and punctuation marks on the disc mill machine design. questions obtained from the results of discussions with the head of spr regarding the need for machines that support the process of making ruminant feed. item consists of 25 questions. the results of the data are processed quantitatively using a likert scale 5. this stage is the first step in making tool designs which will later provide a clear picture for the manufacturing department in making the conceptualized machine. this design describes the size, type of material and working procedures. the design process uses the autodesk inventor application. this design is in accordance with the needs obtained during an interview with the head of the people’s husbandry centre (spr) cinagarabogo. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 18 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 16-20, 2023 in the process of making 2d sketches, it was found that some components were made of stainless steel. this is because based on the needs analysis, the machine will be used to crush corn cobs in ruminant feed, so a strong machine is needed in the process. in the next stage, the research team created a 3d image of the disc mill machine. also made a detailed description of each component in the disc mill machine. drawings of components and types of materials used will facilitate the manufacturing process in making machine prototypes. validation in the design validation stage the tool was carried out by mr. agus haris abadi, s.pd., m.pd who was a validator in the field of design to carry out inspections and the feasibility of the corncob crushing machine that had been previously designed by researchers to find out whether the tool could be used. the next process is manufacturing machine manufacturing, or the design revision process still must be carried out because there are still several things that need to be reviewed again, with notes that have been provided by the validator. in the validation stage of this engine design, four revisions have been made which were checked by the validator. the implementation of the revision given by the validator is in the form of withdrawing information contained in the tool components and providing information on the height, width, and length of the machine design. this is done to make it clear when the manufacturing department reads the working drawings. validation adjusts the drawing rules, selection of materials and sizes, as well as the suitability of punctuation in 2d designs. the validation results state that the image gets a score of 87% or is in the proper category. the assessment covers the clarity of the design, the appropriateness/accuracy of the design, the merging of documents, the view of the projection/drawing, the feasibility of the design. the likert scale can be seen in table 1. figure 2: disc mill design 2d figure 3: disc mill design 3d tabel 1: indicator validasi no. indicator scale 1 2 3 4 5 1 clarity of design v 2 appropriateness/ accuracy of design v 3 merging documents v 4 views of projection /drawing v 5 design feasibility v manufacturing in this stage, researchers carry out the manufacturing process. this process begins with the process of measuring, cutting, welding, and assembling. making machines based on validated drawings. the tool making process guide uses work preparation as a reference in the stages of making a disk mill machine. the work process begins reading work preparation (wp). the materials used in the manufacture of the corn crusher machine frame are galvanized hollow 37 mm x 37 mm 1.2 mm thick, 2 mm thick stainless-steel plate, 0.8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 16-20, 2023 mm thick stainless-steel plate, and 10 mm long stainlesssteel pipe with a diameter of 25.5 mm. 1mm thick. after the tools and materials are prepared, measurements are made on the materials according to the design drawings using a roll meter and an angled ruler. after the measuring and marking process is complete, carry out the process of cutting the material to form the parts using a hand grinder and a cutting disc. cutting based on the dimension line that has been made. after all the material is cut to size, then make an angle of 45°. the cutting results are then refined on the sharp edges so as not to harm. manufacturing documentation can be seen in figure 4. mill machine that has had its filter repaired and its cooling system run again for 1.5 hours non-stop, the results obtained are that the machine can work, and the engine temperature has decreased. the results obtained from repairing this disc mill machine are: 1. the filter can be reused as seen from the result that the resulting components are evenly small. 2. the engine temperature has decreased quite well, seen when checking the engine performance test using the same tribological tool during the initial observation. the machine is started and floured, and the engine figure 4: measurement, cutting and assembly disc mill machine figure 5: disc mill machine figure 6: crushed corncobs from the machine the next process is joining the materials by welding. welding is carried out using a smaw welding machine and using rd 260 electrodes. before welding is carried out, first adjust the current of the welding machine according to the diameter of the electrode used, then do a tack weld as a temporary connection before doing long welding. welding a long 750 mm galvanized hollow and a 600 mm long galvanized hollow which has been made at an angle of 45° at the ends to form 90°. the corncob disc mill machine can be seen in figure 5. performance testing performance tests show that the machine can crush corn cobs for the manufacture of ruminant feed with a capacity of 25 kilograms of corn cobs/1 hour. the disc temperature remains between 53 to 65 degrees celsius. 3. the disc mill machine becomes cleaner after repair and cleaning. the results of this test were carried out at the the people’s husbandry centre (spr) cinagarabogo feed manufacturing warehouse. some of the shortcomings are related to the fineness of the results of crushing the corncobs, so that it requires repeated crushing processes. figure 7: engine temperature testing conclusions based on the research, it can be concluded that the design made has been declared valid with a score of 87% or is in the proper category. further recommendations that the design is feasible to proceed to the manufacturing process. the limitation of this research is making tool designs using the auto cad (cad) application, the manufacturing process includes making frames, https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 16-20, 2023 journal of aquaculture and animal science, 1(1), 38–45. https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/au76q fathurohman, f., sobari, e., & safitri, f. a. (2017). human resources development strategy in brucellosis diseases monitoring at sentra peternakan rakyat cinarabogo, subang. advances in health sciences research (ahsr), 5, 169–173. https://doi.org/10.2991/icoh17.2018.33 jibrin, m. u., amonye, m. c., akonyi, n. s., & oyeleran, o. a. (2013). design and development of a crop residue crushing machine. international journal of engineering inventions, 2(8), 28–34. www.ijeijournal.com kruszelnicka, w., hlosta, j., diviš, j., & gierz, ł. (2021). study of the relationships between multi-hole, multidisc mill performance parameters and comminution indicators. sustainability (switzerland), 13(15), 12–15. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158260 nandiyanto, a. b. d., ragadhita, r., sukmafitri, a., bilad, m. r., aziz, m., & yunas, j. (2020). mechanical impact in disk mill for producing controlled rice husk particle size by changing impactor shapes and disk rotation speeds. sains malaysiana, 49(12), 2927–2940. https:// doi.org/10.17576/jsm-2020-4912-05 nauval, m. i., faoji, a., & syarifudin. (2018). design of corn grain grinder into flour disk mill machine type ffc 15 [politeknik harapan bersama]. in angewandte chemie international edition, 6(11), 951–952. https://doi.org/http://eprints.poltektegal.ac.id/id/ eprint/724 rangkuti, p. a., hasbullah, r., & sumariana, k. s. u. (2012). disc mill performance test for juwawut (setaria italica (l.) p. beauvois). agritech, 32(1), 66–72. https://doi.org/10.22146/agritech.9658 widiati, r. (2014). developing beef cattle industry at smallholders to support beef self-sufficiency. wartazoa, 24(4), 191–200. https://doi.org/ http://dx.doi.org/10.14334/wartazoa.v24i4.1090 stands, and other necessary components. tool testing is carried out twice, namely laboratory scale testing and field testing, this study was also limited to one type of corncob available at spr cinagarabogo and treatment during the dry season. the social impact of this research is that breeders, especially in subang regency, can utilize corn cobs which are usually thrown away as animal feed, besides that breeders are able to utilize simple but effective technology. suggestions for further research using corncobs with different levels of water content and carried out in the rainy season. references ditjen, p.k.h. (2015). pedoman sentra peternakan rakyat (spr). direktorat jenderal peternakan dan kesehatan hewan. 1–32 efendi, a., & suhartono, r. (2018). corn cob disc mill machine repair and maintenance. journal rekayasa mesin, 13(3), 97104. https://doi.org/10.32497/rm.v13i3.1281 efendi, a., & suhartono, r. (2019). maintenance of disc mill machines of the people’s livestock center (spr) chinagarbogo. sintek jurnal: journal ilmiah teknik mesin, 13(1), 44–50. https://doi. org/10.24853/sintek.13.1.44-50 fathurohman, f. (2019). subang regency livestock area business model. journal ilmiah ilmu dan teknologi rekayasa, 1(1), 35–44. https://doi.org/10.31962/jiitr. v1i1.53 fathurohman, f., & baharta, r. (2020). analisis kelayakan usaha pembuatan pakan ternak komplit dengan mekanisasi skala kelompok di kabupaten subang. journal agribisnis terpadu, 13(1), 58. https:// doi.org/10.33512/jat.v13i1.6774 fathurohman, f., purwasih, r., & mukminah, n. (2022). development of beef cattle agribusiness in the rubber plantation farming system in the community livestock center area , west java indonesia. american https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset microsoft word 59-article text-103-1-2-20210420 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agro-forestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science experimental agriculture food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 19 effect of commercial feeds on growth and production performance of shrimp (penaeus monodon) in bagerhat coastal ponds of bangladesh d sutradhar1, m s islam2, m akter3, i n suravi4, i jahan5, n c roy6 doi: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4716476 abstract the experiment was conducted over 120 days from march to june 2019 in bagerhat sadar upazila, bagerhat. the study was categorized into four treatments indicated as t1 (aci feed), t2 (quality feed), t3 (mega feed) and t4 (control) with three replicates. the experimental ponds were stocked with shrimp pl at same density of 4 nos./m2. ponds were treated with agricultural lime based on soil and water ph and fertilized with urea and triple super phosphate depending on water transparency and depth. different water quality parameters were determined at ten-day intervals. parameters of water were within acceptable ranges of shrimp culture. higher growth (30.36 g) of shrimp was achieved in t2 compared to t1 (28.53 g), t3 (27.43 g) and t4 (22.85 g). growth and survival rate of shrimp were comparatively lower in t4 at the same stocking density. significantly (p<0.05) higher production of shrimp was obtained in t2 (971.52 kg/ha) than those of t1 (855.90 kg/ha), t3 (757.07 kg/ha) and t4 (566.68 kg/ha). highest net profit (us$ 2570.2/ha) of shrimp farming was found in t 2 than that of t 1 (us$ 2105.7), t 3 (us$ 1786.6) and t 4 (us$ 1298.1). results of the study indicate that among different commercial feeds quality feed (t2) is better than other feeds in respect of survival rate, growth, production and net profit. so, farmers may be encouraged to use quality feed for getting higher production and significant return in a short period of time. keywords: penaeus monodon, growth, production, water quality parameters, net profit. 1d sutradhar, ms student, department of coastal and marine fisheries, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh, 2m s islam, professor, department of coastal and marine fisheries, sylhet agricultural university, sylhet-3100; email: islamms2011@yahoo.com 3m akter, lecturer, department of coastal and marine fisheries, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh 4i n suravi, lecturer, department of coastal and marine fisheries, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh 5i jahan, ms student, department of coastal and marine fisheries, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh 6n c roy phd, professor, department of fish biology & genetics, sylhet agricultural university, sylhet, bangladesh, e-mail: ncroy@sau.ac.bd; orcid: https://orcid.org/00000001-8157-4898 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 20 introduction bangladesh is considered one of the most suitable country in the world for shrimp and prawn farming, because of its resources and favorable agro–climatic conditions. a sub-tropical climate and a vast area of shallow waterbodies provide a unique opportunity for shrimp and prawn production (islam et al., 2008). the culture of shrimp and prawn in the coastal zone is a major export earning activity for bangladesh. total shrimp and prawn production including capture has been increased from 1.60 lakh mt in 2002-03 to 2.39 lakh mt in 2018-19 (dof, 2020). this culture is ongoing in the coastal belt during the early 1980s to supply international markets and earning foreign currencies (islam et al., 2001). the giant tiger shrimp, penaeus monodon is the largest brackish water shrimp, which is widely distributed throughout the indo-pacific region. it has been harvested from the sea and cultured in many countries of the world. the most important characteristic is its fast growth. it is a euryhaline and grow well in salinities from 5 ppt to 25 ppt. survival rate is usually between 70-80% and it adapts well to intensified culture system (liao, 1987). bailey-brock and moss (1992) described shrimp as omnivorous scavengers, opportunistic omnivores, detritus feeders, carnivores and predators. they consume detrital aggregates including bacteria, meiofauna, protozoa, micro-algae, zooplankton, macrobenthos and other items (dall, 1968; chong and sasekumar, 1997; moriarty, 1997). the widely diverse feeding behaviors offer possibility to culture shrimp in polyculture as either the main species or a secondary species. the nutrients in artificial feeds are well balanced to meet the nutritional needs of the cultured shrimp. the nutrients that should be included in shrimp feeds include protein for body building, fat for normal functioning of the body and for energy, carbohydrates for energy, mineral salts for bone structure and body functions and vitamins for good health. regular supply of artificial feeds in shrimp culture pond generally increases shrimp production two times than that without artificial feeding (shofiquzzoha and alam, 2008). locally available ingredients such as fish meal, soya, maize and wheat are some ingredients that provide the nutrients listed above. the cost of feeds is the highest cost of production in commercial shrimp/fish farming. it ranges from 40% to 60% of the total cost of production. use of formulated low-cost feed with locally available feed ingredients instead of expensive commercial feed may be a means to reduce feed cost as well as production cost. in many times, all ingredients of balanced feed are not available at local level round the year. easily available low-cost commercial feeds such as quality feed, aci feed, maisa feed, mega feed and nourish feed may be used instead of locally made low quality feed for increasing shrimp production as well as for higher net return. considering the growth, production potential, feeding behavior and economic benefit, shrimp (p. monodon) culture is practicing in many countries of the world. in maximum time, shrimp farmers of this country could not properly harvest shrimp due to viral diseases. most of the shrimp farmers of bangladesh do not use any type of feed for shrimp. natural foodstuffs present in the shrimp pond are not sufficient to fulfill the demand of the growing biomass. growth and production of farmed shrimp is largely dependent upon the supply and intake of dietary nutrient inputs and feed. so, economic loss due to low growth of shrimp might be partially minimized using commercial feed. production and profitability of shrimp depend on several factors. use of commercial feed is one of the most imperative factors among them. some sporadic works on effects of commercial feed on growth and production of shrimp have been done in bangladesh. keeping the above facts in mind, the present study was undertaken to assess the effects of different commercial feeds on survival, production and economic return of shrimp culture at brackish water earthen ponds in bagerhat region. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 21 meterials and methods experimental area and design the experiment was conducted in twelve brackish water earthen ponds situated at bagerhat sadar upazila of bagerhat district (fig. 1). average area of the pond was 400 m 2 and average depth of water was 0.8-1.6 m each. the experiment was performed for a period of 120 days from march to june 2019. the experiment was designated as four treatments having three replications each. the treatments were t1, t2, t3 and t4. selected ponds were randomly allocated under each treatment. stocking density of shrimp was same each of the treatment. fig. 1. map of bagerhat sadar upazila showing the experimental area. pond preparation and management all selected ponds were drained out and were fully exposed to sunlight. ponds were prepared by repairing the embankments and by removing all types of weeds. before the trial, ponds were treated with agricultural lime (caco3) at a rate of 250 kg/ha based on soil ph. ponds were then filled with tidal water gradually up to a depth of 0.9 m from the nearby tidal canal through screen net. all unwanted organisms were eliminated using rotenone at a rate of 3 ppm and then lime (caco3) was applied at a rate of 125 kg/ha for neutralizing its action. after 5 days of cleaning, ponds were fertilized with urea and tsp at a rate of 50 and 100 kg/ha, respectively. after 4-5 days of fertilization, the color of water turned into green. fine meshed nylon net was used as fence on the dikes around ponds to prohibit the potential disease carrier’s fauna such as snail, snake and others from outside. collection, stocking and feeding of shrimp after collection of shrimp pl from local market of rampal in bagerhat, the polythene bags were kept in the experimental ponds for about 40 minutes and water was exchanged between bags and ponds to acclimatize with pond water temperature. after conditions, pl were released in all ponds. commercial shrimp feed as quality feed (29.0% protein, 11.0% moisture, 6.0% crude lipid and 5.0% crude fiber), aci feed (33% protein, 10.0% moisture, 6.0% crude lipid and 7.0% crude fiber) and mega feed (35.0% protein, 11.0% moisture, 6.0% crude lipid and 5.0% crude fiber) procured from local market was applied 6 days in a week to ponds at a rate of 10% of total shrimp biomass for first month, 6% for 2nd month and gradually decreased up to 3% until the end of the study. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 22 water quality determination water quality parameters of ponds like temperature, salinity, transparency, dissolved oxygen (do) concentration, ph, total alkalinity and ammonia were measured between 9.00-10.00 am after 10-day intervals. salinity of water was measured using a portable refractometer (atago, hand refractometer). surface water temperature was determined in situ using a standard centigrade thermometer. transparency was recorded using secchi disc. dissolved oxygen was determined using a portable do meter (ysi 58 digital do meter, hanna, yellow springs, ohio 45387 usa). ph of water was recorded using ph meter (hanna, usa). total alkalinity was measured by titrimetric method (apha, 2000). ammonia nitrogen was measured using ammonia test kit (biosol, a.a. biotech pvt ltd., fishtech bd ltd). sampling of shrimp fortnightly sampling of 15-20% stocked shrimp to estimate the biomass and to adjust the feeding rations and also to observe the physical conditions of stocked shrimp. shrimp were sampled using cast net. weight and length of 40 individuals of shrimp were recorded for growth assessment. weight (g) was measured using a portable balance and length (cm) by measuring scale. sampling was continued until harvest. estimation of growth, survival and production of shrimp after 120 days of culture, bamboo poles and leaves were removed, water was drained out of ponds and all shrimp were harvested by repeated netting (cast net and surrounding net). all shrimp harvested from each pond were counted, measured and weighted individually to determine survival rate, growth and production. specific growth rate (sgr), feed conversion ratio (fcr) and survival rate (%) were calculated following the equation as cited by pechsiri and yakupitiyage (2005). the equations are as follows: weight gain (g) = mean final weight (g) mean initial weight (g). specific growth rate (sgr) (%/day) = {ln (final body weight) ln (initial body weight) × 100}/cultured period (days). feed conversion ratio (fcr) = feed consumed (g dry weight)/live weight gain (g wet weight) of shrimp. survival rate (%) = (number of shrimps harvested ÷ total number of shrimps stocked) × 100. production of shrimp= no. of shrimp caught × average final weight of shrimp. yield and economic analysis the following equations were used to calculate production and profitability (chowdhury et al., 2020; dillon and hardaker, 1993). the currency was converted from bdt to us$ (bdt 84 = us$ 1). gross return (gri) =σi piqi net return (π) =σi (piqi) tfc tvc benefit cost ratio (bcr) = gri/tc here, pi = market value of harvested shrimp in us$, qi = production (kg/ha), i = treatments (t1, t2, t3 and t4), tfc = total fixed cost, tvc = total variable cost, tc = total cost (tfc + tvc). issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 23 statistical analysis the data were expressed as mean with their standard error mean (se). all data were analyzed using ibm spss statistics version 23. data were initially tested for normality (shapiro-wilk test) and homogeneity of variance (levene’s test for equality of variance) before conducting one-way analysis of variance (anova). all data were normally distributed and variances were approximately equal. as both conditions were fulfilled, growth and economic data were tested through anova. significant difference among means was compared with tukey’s hsd test at p<0.05. linear regression was conducted to examine how well feed could predict growth parameters. results and discussion growth, production and profit of shrimp farming growth, survival rate and production of shrimp (p. monodon) in four treatments are depicted in table 1. average body weight (abw) of pl of p. monodon during stocking was same (0.006 g) in all shrimp ponds. mean final weight of shrimp was the highest in t2 (30.36 g) followed by t1 (28.53 g), t3 (27.43 g) and t4 (22.85 g), respectively (fig. 2). khanam et al. (2018) reported the final weight of shrimp as 23.40-31.76 g at different stocking densities (35 pcs/m2) for 120 days at farmer’s level, which supports the findings of the present study. ghosh et al. (2013) recorded the final weight of shrimp as 40 g at a stocking density of 5 pcs/m2 for 150 days in pranti shrimp farming (psf), koira, khulna, which is higher than the findings of the present study. masud et al. (1997) demonstrated that final weight of shrimp as 15.5 to 26 g at different stocking density for 120 days in elite aquaculture farm ltd. in teknaf of cox´s bazar, which is lower than the findings of the present work. hossain et al. (1992) reported that shrimp attained an average weight of 21.65 g after rearing of 120 days with a stocking density of 5 pl/m² in earthen ponds, which is also lower than the present findings. table 1. growth, survival rate and production (mean±sd) of penaeus monodon in different treatments. mean values in the same row with same superscript letters are not significantly different (p>0.05) parameters treatments t1 (aci feed) t2 (quality feed) t3 (mega feed) t4 (control) stocking density (nos./m2) 4 4 4 4 average initial weight (g) 0.006±0.002 0.006±0.001 0.006±0.002 0.006±0.001 average final weight (g) 28.53 b ±1.05 30.36 a ±2.23 27.43 c ±1.53 22.85 d ±1.38 daily weight gain (g) 0.24 b ±.09 0.25 a ±0.05 0.23 c ±0.04 0.19 d ±0.07 fcr 3.1 b ±0.10 2.5 c ±0.15 3.3 a ±0.19 3.5 a ±0.20 specific growth rate (%/day) 7.06 b ±1.02 7.11 a ±1.01 7.02 c ±1.02 6.87 d ±0.22 survival rate (%) 75.00 b ±6.06 80.00 a ±5.49 69.00 c ±7.91 62.00 d ±2.00 production (kg/ha) 855.9 b ±15.33 971.52 a ±27.83 757.07 c ±32.96 566.68 d ±9.68 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 24 in present study, daily weight gain of shrimp was recorded as 0.24, 0.25, 0.23 and 0.19 g, respectively in t1, t2, t3 and t4 for 120 days. khanam et al. (2018) reported the daily weight gain of shrimp as 0.19 to 0.26 g for 120 days at 3-5 pcs/m2, which is in agreement with the present findings. ghosh et al. (2013) measured the daily weight of shrimp as 0.20 to 0.28.5 g of 150 days at 5 to 15 pcs/m² density at psf, koira, khulna, which is coincided with the present finding. masud et al. (1997) reported that the daily weight of shrimp was 0.128 to 0.216 g at different stocking density for 120 days in cox´s bazar, which is slightly lower than the findings of the present study. fig. 2. growth (g) of p. monodon in four treatments. specific growth rate (sgr) of shrimp varied from 6.87 to 7.11%, which is consistent with the findings of khanam et al. (2018), who recorded the sgr of shrimp as 6.89-7.14%. islam et al. (2008) found the sgr of shrimp as 6.79-6.91% in farmers´ shrimp farms of bagerhat, which is in agreement with the findings of the present experiment. sharma and reddy (1996) reported sgr of shrimp as 2.01% using commercially available feed, which is lower than the present findings. feed conversion ratio (fcr) of p. monodon in the present study ranged between 2.5-3.5%, which is close to the findings of khanam et al. (2018), who found the fcr of shrimp as 2.45 to 3.00. the findings of the present study are higher than the findings of masud et al. (1997), who recorded fcr of shrimp as 1.78 to 2.02. chekait et al. (1995) observed the fcr ranged from 1.5 to 1.55 using microencapsulated diets, which is lower than present findings of the study. wyban and sweeney (1989) found that shrimp as 2.0 to 2.5, which is slightly lower than the findings of the present study. chanratchakool et al. (1995) stated that fcr varies with the stocking density, quality of feed, depth of water, quality of pl and the size at which shrimp were harvested. survival rate of shrimp in this study was 62.00 to 80.00%. higher survival rate of shrimp was found in t2 (80.00%) followed by t1 (75.00%), t3 (69.00%) and t4 (62.00%), respectively. khanam et al. (2018) obtained survival rate of shrimp as 76.00-85.00%, which is slightly higher than the findings of this study. ghosh et al. (2013) found survival rate of shrimp as 5876%, which is lower than the present findings. islam and mahmud (2010) and islam et al. (2008) recorded survival rate of shrimp as 58-72.5 and 64.5-71.0%, respectively in shrimp farms of bagerhat, which are lower than the present findings. masud et al. (1997) obtained the survival rate of shrimp as 49 to 70%, which is also lower than the present study. 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 1 mar 15 mar 30 mar 15 apr 30 apr 15 may 30 may 15 jun 30 jun g ro w th ( g) o f sh ri m p date of sampling t1 t2 t3 t4 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 25 production of shrimp in all treatments ranged from 566.68 to 971.52 kg/ha with the highest production (971.52 /ha) in t 2 and the lowest production (566.68 kg/ha) in t 4 for 120 days culture period. this finding is close to the findings of khanam et al. (2018), who found production of shrimp as 809.88 to 990.00 kg/ha for 120 days in farmer’s pond. ghosh et al. (2013) obtained production of shrimp as 1498 to 2058 kg/ha in the stocking densities of 5 to 15 pcs/m², which is higher than the production of the present study. the findings of present study are higher than the findings obtained by islam and mahmud (2010) and islam et al. (2008), who recorded shrimp production as 416.9-641.7 and 404.0-509.0 kg/ha in shrimp ponds of bagerhat stocked with 3 pl/m² for 120 days fed with different feeds. chen et al. (1989) found that production of shrimp as 848-1550 kg/ ha, which is higher than the findings of present study. profit of shrimp farming in present study obtained the highest (us$ 2570.1/ha) in t2 followed by t1 (us$ 2105.7/ha), t3 (us$ 1786.6/ha) and t4 (us$ 1298.1/ha). benefit cost ratio (bcr) was also highest in t2 (1.56) than those of t1 (1.50), t3 (1.47) and t4 (1.45) (fig. 3). the findings of this study are higher than the findings of khanam et al. (2018), who obtained the profit from shrimp farming as us$ 1615.9 to 2336.2/ha for 120 days at a density of 3-5 pcs/m2. observed profit was higher than the findings of ghosh et al. (2013), who recorded the net profit as us$ 1892.9/ha at a stocking density of 10 pcs/m 2 . so, it is indicated that the highest net profit and bcr were obtained from the treatment of quality feed (t 2 ) than others. fig. 3. cost and economic return of p. monodon farming during study period. water quality parameters values of water temperature varied from 28.23 °c to 33.20°c, which is in agreement with the findings of khanam et al. (2018) and ghosh et al. (2013), who found water temperature ranges from 26.17 to 32.93°c and 25 to 32°c, respectively in farmer’s shrimp pond of bagerhat and khulna (fig. 4a). dissolved oxygen (do) concentration ranged from 4.10 to 5.33 mg/l, which supports the findings of khanam et al. (2018) and ghosh et al. (2013) who found the do ranges from 4.02 to 5.01 mg/l and 4.0 to 6.0 mg/l, respectively (fig. 4b). salinity of water varied from 3.44 to 6.97 ppt. ghosh et al. (2013) reported that the ranges of salinity for shrimp was 12 to 26 ppt, which is higher than the findings of present study (fig. 6317.1 7171.2 5587.8 4182.6 4211.4 4601.1 3801.2 2884.5 2105.7 2570.1 1786.6 1298.1 0.0 1000.0 2000.0 3000.0 4000.0 5000.0 6000.0 7000.0 8000.0 9000.0 t1 t2 t3 t4 u s $/ ha treatments total gross return (us$/ha) total cost (us$/ha) net profit (us$/ha) issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 26 4c). islam and mahmud (2010) reported the salinity ranged from 1.2-11.0 ppt in shrimp ponds, which are slightly higher than the present findings. concentrations of ammonia nitrogen (nh3-n) varied from 0.004 to 0.089 mg/l, which is similar with the findings of khanam et al. (2018), islam and mahmud (2012) and islam et al. (2008) who recorded ammonia nitrogen ranged from 0.003-0.008mg/l and 0.028-0.029 mg/l, respectively (fig. 4d). fig. 4a. variation of water temperature (°c) during study period. fig. 4b. variation of dissolved oxygen (mg/l) during study period. fig. 4c. variation of salinity (ppt) during study period. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 27 fig. 4d. variation of ammonia nitrogen (mg/l) during study period. conclusions sustainable of shrimp culture is dependent on various factors. effect of commercial feeds is one of the most important among these factors. most of the shrimp farmers are not aware of application of commercial shrimp feeds. but it is utmost imperative to know the quality, application and management of feeds for more production and more income. based on the findings of the present study, it can be concluded that treatment 2 (quality feed) is the best among all treatments in respect of survival, growth, production and net profit. therefore, this commercial feed may be used in shrimp culture system in the coastal area for boost up shrimp production with a significant return. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 28 references alam, m. j., islam, m. l. & tuong, t. p. (2008). introducing tilapia (gift) with shrimp (penaues monodon) in brackishwater rice-shrimp system: impact on water quality and production. bangladesh journal of fisheries research, 12(2), 187-195. bailey-brock, j. h. & moss, s. m. (1992). penaeid taxonomy, biology and zoogeography. developments in aquaculture and fisheries science, 23, 9-27. chowdhury, m. a., roy, n. c. & chowdhury, a. (2020). growth, yield and economic returns of striped catfish (pangasianodon hypophthalmus) at different stocking densities under floodplain cage culture system. egypt. j. aquat. res. 46, 91-95. chong, v. c., sasekumar, a. & wolanski, e. (1997). the role of mangroves in retaining penaeid prawn larvae in klang strait, malaysia. oceanographic literature review, 6(44), 621. chakraborty, s. c., paul, a. k. & hossain, m. a. (1996). effect of stocking density on growth of tiger shrimp (penaeus monodon) fed on commercial formulated diets. bangladesh fisheries research institute. bangladesh journal of fisheries research, 1(1), 53-63. chanratchakool, p. j. f., turnbul, s., fung, s. & wan, c. l. (1995). health management in shrimp ponds, 2nd edition. published by aquatic animal health research institute. dept. of fisheries. kasetsart university campus, jatujak, bankok 10900, thailand. pp. 111. chekait, n. g. (1995). micro-encapsulation applications in aquaculture. aqua int. 140, 28-29. chen, j. c., liu, p. c. & lin, y. t. (1989). culture of penaeus monodon in an intensified system in taiwan. aquaculture, 77, 319-328. dof (department of fisheries) (2020). yearbook of fisheries statistics of bangladesh 20182019. fisheries resources survey system, department of fisheries, ministry of fisheries and livestock, matshya bhaban, dhaka. pp. 124. das, s. k., tiwari, v. k., venkateshwarlu, g., reddy, a. k., parhi, j., sharma, p. & chettri, j. k. (2007). growth, survival and fatty acid composition of macrobrachium rosenbergii (de man, 1879) post larvae fed hufa-enriched moina micrura. aquaculture, 269(1-4), 464-475. dillon j. l. & hardaker, j. b. (1993). farm management research for small farmer development. food and agriculture organization of the united nations, rome, italy. dall, w. (1968). food and feeding of some australian penaeid shrimp. fao fisheries report, 2, 251-258. ghosh, a. k., sarkar, s., bir, j., islam, s. s., huq, k. a. & naser, m. n. (2013). probiotic tiger shrimp (penaeus monodon) farming at different stocking densities and its impact on production and economics. international journal of research in fisheries and aquaculture, 3(2), 25-29. hossain, s. m. z., corre, j. r. v. & tolcdo, c. e. (1992). effect of stocking densities on the growth, survival and production of penaeus monodon (fabricius). bangladesh journal of zoology, 20, 35-42. islam, m. s. & mahmud, y. (2012). impact of stocking density of freshwater prawn (macrobrachium rosenbergii) and monosex tilapia (oreochromis niloticus) on production and economic return under polyculture systems in brackishwater ponds. eco-friendly agricultural journal, 5(12), 257-263. islam, m. s. & mahmud, y. (2010). impact of different feeds on production and economic return of tiger shrimp (penaeus monodon) in coastal aquaculture farm. bangladesh journal of agriculture, 35(1), 119-126. issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 29 islam, m. s., mahmud, y. & faruque, a. m. o. (2008). effects of different types of feeds on growth and production of tiger shrimp, penaeus monodon at bagerhat region, bangladesh. bangladesh journal of fisheries research, 12(2), 205-212. islam, m. s. & ahmad, s. u. (2001). by-catch mortality during collection of penaeus monodon (fab) post-larvae from the rivers of khulna bangladesh. journal of the national science foundation of sri lanka, 29, 3-4. khanam, a., islam, m. s., akter, m. & hasan, m. m. (2018). effect of stocking densities on survival and production of black tiger shrimp in coastal earthen ponds. journal of the sylhet agricultural university, 5(1), 87-93. liao, c. (1987). prawn culture from taiwan’s experience. round table panel, 18th annual meeting of world aquaculture society, contrib. b−52 tungkang marine laboratory. guayaquil, ecuador. pp. 24. masud, a. k. m. s., rahmatullah, s. m. & islam, m. a. (1997). effect of stocking density on the growth, survival and production of black tiger shrimp (penaeus monodon). bangladesh journal of fisheries, 20 (1-2), 117-120. moriarty, d. j. (1997). the role of microorganisms in aquaculture ponds. aquaculture, 151(1-4), 333-349. pechsiri, j. & yakupitiyage, a. (2005). a comparative study of growth and feed utilization efficiency of sex-reversed dipliod and triploid nile tilapia (oreochromis niloticus l.). aquaculture research, 36, 45-51. shofiquzzoha, a. f. m. & alam, m. j. (2008). culture feasibility of silver barb (barbodes gonionotus bleeker) and gift with shrimp (penaeus monodon feb.) in brackishwater pond. bangladesh journal of fisheries research, 12(1), 69−74. wyban, j. a. & sweeney, j. n. (1989). intensive shrimp grow out trials in a round pond. aquaculture, 76(3-4), 215-225. microsoft word 65-full article with author-145-1-2-20210517 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agro-forestry and ecotourism agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology crop science and production dairy science & poultry science decision support system engineering entomology environmental science and extension dental and medical science experimental agriculture food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering renewable energy science social science and agricultural development soil science tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 81 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org investigation of risk and safety scenario in risk matrix of petroleum production system of three gas fields, bangladesh md. numan hossain1, m. farhad howladar2 doi: http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.4837222 abstract the economic growth of bangladesh largely depends on the petroleum industry. the most important part of petroleum industry is the production system. however, accident is a common scenario in the petroleum industry. in fact, several risks may be involved during the drilling, production, and transportation phase of this industry. in the case of comprehension, these risks associated at an early stage may acquire the appropriate measures aligned to them. this study investigates personnel perceptions about risk and safety involved in production system of the petroleum industry. to perform this research, the data were collected from three fields kailashtila, haripur & mste plant operated by sylhet gas fields limited (sfgl), bangladesh. the collected data were analyzed by ibm spss 20. the frequency analysis performed and risk matrix generated in this study. the frequency analysis shows that the overall safety situations. moreover, the results of the risk matrix pointed out the risk level as low, medium or high. at the end of study, based on the implicit risks, the necessary measures are recommended for the future security of the industry. keywords: petroleum production system, risk, safety, risk matrix, risk level identification. 1 dept. of petroleum & mining engineering, shahjalal university of science & technology, sylhet, bangladesh.e-mail: numan.hossain10@gmail.com 2 dept. of petroleum & mining engineering, shahjalal university of science & technology, sylhet, bangladesh. e-mail: farhad-pme@sust.edu american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 82 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction risk is any incident which can cause accident. according to iso, risk is characterized by reference to potential events and consequences or a combination of these (iso,2009). risk is a common term in petroleum production system. accident may occur at any time in oil and gas industry from a little mistake or improper work. and also, production can’t be maximized without ensuring safety of the industry. so, it is the most vital part to prevent the occurrence of accident to save the industry as well as to save the workforces. for this, it is very important to give consideration on safety. safety may be defined as the freedom from risk which is not tolerable (iso,2014). risk and safety study in oil & gas sector become a matter of highly concern after occurring several disastrous accidents such as piper alpha in the north sea (1988), alexander l. kielland in scotland (1980), ocean ranger rig disaster (1982), drillship seacrest accident 1989) and so on (mendes et al, 2014). many researchers conducted their research work on risk and safety analysis of oil and gas sectors. among them rundmo (1992), flin et al (1996), mearns et al (2003;1998), cox & cheyne (2000), suslick & schiozer (2004) and so on. after occurring another disaster at mumbai high north (2005), researchers arezes & miguel (2008), jafari et al. (2009), rasmussen (2013), torres et al. (2017) provided some good works on safety research of oil and gas industry. most of the researchers conducted their research on risk & safety of petroleum operations based on perceived risk. risk perception is the outcome of the processing, assimilation and evaluation of personal experiences, or information about risk, by individuals or groups in society, and it is the judgements of risk sources, evaluation of hazardous activities and technologies by individuals (espeland,2010; iso,2014). in bangladesh, petroleum field discovered in 1955 (imam,2013). after starting production, it has been already faced some accidents (nasir & khan, 2014). so, it is very important to know the root cause behind the accident for the future of petroleum industry. this study will help to understand the perceived risk & safety of petroleum production system of three gas fields of bangladesh. and also helps to demonstrate the risk level associated in such industry in risk matrix and point out actions which should be followed to minimize the level of risk. hope, this study will be very helpful and create a new dimension in safety research of bangladesh. methodology study area & data collection the data were collected from three gas fields operating by sylhet gas fields limited (sgfl). these are haripur gas fields (also known as sylhet gas fields), kailashtila gas fields & kailashtila mste plant (figure-1). this study is a questionnaire based. here, a list of questionnaire items was used for collecting contextual information for leading the research work. first, questionnaire was distributed by physically visiting among the personnel of gas fields working in different departments. after that, the response of the employees was collected for analysis. approximately 95 questionnaires were distributed in three gas fields where response rate was 78% out of 100%. the respondents had the full freedom to participate in this survey willingly. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 83 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org figure-1: study area (google map). questionnaire items the questionnaire relevant to the risk and safety of oil & gas industry was selected first. the inquiry items were adjusted from previous research work rundmo (1992), flin et al (1996), mearns et al (2003) and chutelkar & mishra (2019). the risk related question included 17 items relevant to individual and installation risks, 18 items related to risks associated with work tusks and 13 quarry items related to safety & contingency measures of the workplace (table-1). the questionnaire evaluation procedure was rating based. the personnel taking part in this survey was rated question based on their own opinion. the evaluations included ratings on a five-point rating scale for each test item. the scale for risk perception ranged from “very safe” to “very unsafe.” the scale for safety and contingency aspects ranged from “very ideal” to “not at all ideal”. table-1: questionnaire items. individual and installation risks risks associated with work tasks/ activities safety & contingency measures of the workplace  falling objects / structural failure  crushing by machines  slippery surfaces  live electrical equipment  burns  cold/ hot surfaces  blow-out  fire  noxious gases  sabotage  escape routes  evacuation facilities  startup installations and processes  stop, reduce pace, run down a process  handle material, manual control of process  monitor production  set up scaffolds, cranes, machines  perform preventive maintenance  perform repair work  perform cleaning of  control and inspection routines in the safety work  work instructions  safety instructions  follow up and measures taken after injuries and accidents have taken place  first aid training  contingency training  safety training  order and cleanliness at american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 84 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org  alarm systems  medical services  first-aid  slipping  falling to lower level machines and equipment  perform manual lifting, handling  perform mechanical lifting, handling  participate in transportation of other material  participate in function testing of equipment  carry out inspection  move about on the platform  clean the premise  non-routine operations  when drilling is taking place  overall the place of work  access to emergency exits/escape routes  protection and safety devices on machines and equipment  marking and sign posting  availability of personal safety equipment  use of personal safety equipment data analysis procedure it is known that in statistical analysis for comparing the perception of different individual, it is very easy to use closed-ended questions because closed ended questions have discrete responses, so, analyze of these responses can be done by assigning a number or a value to every answer. so, for gaining quantitative data this study has been designed with rating based closed-ended question or likert scale based items where individuals were rated the answer with their own perception. after collecting all of the data, these have been analyzed by using spss software and ms excel 2013. the statistical analysis was conducted by spss software and the hypothetical analysis was conducted by ms excel 2013. the analysis basically included the evaluation of frequency and generation of risk matrix. the frequency analysis was performed by using the descriptive statistics of analyze options of spss software. the result of frequency expresses either the condition is safe or unsafe (almquist et al,2017; mearns et al, 2003; flin et al, 1996; rundmo, 1992). and, for generating risk matrix, crosstab options of descriptive statistics have been used to correlate the frequency of two dependent variable. at the end, using ms excel the risk matrix is hypothetically generated (johnsen et al., 2007; brazier, 2016; alam, 2019; chutelkar & mishra, 2019). results & discussion the status of workforces feeling safe with risk sources the individual’s perceptions of threats from different risk sources are presented here (table2). the most of the personnel feeling safe 93.2% in case of crushing machine/ machine parts american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 85 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org and lesser amount of people feeling safe in case of evacuation facility. this study also shows that alarm system, slippery surface, escape roots facility is comparatively poor than others. and the personnel feeling more unsafe in case of fire and noxious gas. the average percentages of feeling safe with risk sources is 81.3%. this percentage is quite larger than the previous study. in case of flin et al. (1996) the value of personnel feeling safe was 65.9% and in case of rundmo (1992) perception of feeling safe was 64.6%. from this result it would be concluded that the personnel of petroleum fields of bd feeling safer relative to others in most of the cases. if some cases including evacuation facilities are improving by proper treatments it would be excellent. table-2: the personnel of workplace feeling safe with risk sources. risks sources % safe* %neither* %unsafe* % safe (fin er al 1996) %safe (rundmo 1992) blow-out 89.2 5.4 5.4 63 50 fire 82.4 6.8 10.8 61 47 noxious gases 83.7 5.4 10.8 67 55 sabotage 82.4 12.2 5.4 63 75 crushing by machines/machine parts 93.2 5.4 1.4 79 66 fall to a lower level 74.3 5.7 0 80 62 slipping 78.4 20.2 1.4 38 slippery surfaces 74.3 24.3 1.4 43 burns 78.4 16.2 5.4 68 live electrical equipment 86.5 8.1 5.4 78 68 cold/hot surfaces 91.9 8.1 49 74 medical services 78.4 16.2 5.5 70 79 first-aid 83.8 10.8 5.5 79 alarm systems 74.3 25.7 74 escape routes 79.7 20.3 72 evacuation facilities 58.1 41.9 59 total (average) 81.3 14.1 4.6 65.9 64.6 safe *=safe + very safe, neither* = neither safe nor unsafe, unsafe*= unsafe + very unsafe the risk situation of petroleum fields associated with work tasks/ activities the workforce feeling safe or unsafe during work tasks/ activities displayed in table-3. the total percentages of workforce feeling safe with work tasks/activities is 87.04% which is little bit high than t. rumndo’s result 83.77% and very high than the result of fin et al on the uk offshore oil and gas industry (76.4%). in petroleum fields of bangladesh very small amount of people feeling unsafe (0.32% only) with the work tasks. on the other hand, 12.64% feeling neither safe nor unsafe. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 86 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org safety condition of workplace based on employee’s perception the most important things of maximizing production are ensuring safety of the production system. the overall safety condition and contingency measures of three gas fields are displayed in (table-4). the total idealism of workplace based on result is 72.26% where not ideal safety condition found as 4.26%. and 23.08% respondents were not sure either ideal or not ideal safety situation in the fields. the more security noticed in case of work instruction. on contrary, comparatively less value of protection found in case of use of personal safety equipment, contingency training, first aid training, availability of personal safety equipment. table-4: safety condition of workplace based on employee’s observation. the safety and contingency measures % ideal* %neither* % not ideal* control and inspection routines in the safety work 70.3 24.3 5.4 work instructions 90.5 9.5 0 safety instructions 74.3 16.2 4.1 follow up and measures taken after injuries and accidents have taken place 70.3 28.4 1.4 first aid training 64.9 33.8 1.4 contingency training 62.4 23 14.9 safety training 72.9 23 4.1 order and cleanliness at the place of work 73 23 4 access to emergency exits/escape route 75.7 20.3 4 protection and safety devices on machines and equipment 85.1 14.9 marking and sign posting 73 22.9 4.1 availability of personal safety equipment 66.3 27 6.7 use of personal safety equipment 60.8 33.8 5.4 total (average) 72.26 23.08 4.26 ideal= ideal+ very ideal, neither = neither ideal nor not ideal, not ideal= not ideal+ not at all ideal. table-3 work tasks/activities % safe* %medium* %unsafe* fin et al(1996) % safe* startup installations and process 100 0 0 74 81 move about on the platform 83.8 16.2 0 87 85 perform repair work 94.6 5.4 0 83 86 stop, reduce pace, run down a process 91.9 8.1 0 81 87 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 87 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org handle material, manual control of process 100 0 0 75 66 monitor production 100 0 0 86 94 set up scaffolds, cranes, machines 94.6 5.4 0 79 perform preventive maintenance 77 23 0 84 89 perform cleaning of machines and equipment 89.2 10.8 0 82 90 perform manual lifting, handling 89.2 10.8 0 76 84 participate in transportation of other material 75.7 24.3 0 60 56 participate in function testing of equipment 78.4 21.6 0 71 81 carry out inspection 82.5 17.5 0 82 92 non-routine operations 68.9 27 4.1 60 when drilling is taking place 81.1 17.6 1.4 56 clean the premises 87.8 12.2 0 80 overall 85.1 14.9 0 83 98 total (average) 87.04 12.64 0.32 76.4 83.77 risk level and required actions the risk involved with production system of three gas fields represented in risk matrix. this graphical representation expresses the level of risk associated with production system in a tabular form. the level of risk may be defined as very low, low, moderate, high and very high. when the level of risk very low then no immediate action is required. in case of low risk some concern should be given. for moderate risk some actions required within a timeframe. and when risk level is high then actions should be taken immediately. and in case of high-risk production should be stopped till eliminating the risk (alam,2014). figure-2 represents some result. the level of risk is moderate for slippery surface and slipping. for this case, actions should be taken within a timeframe. similarly for other cases. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 88 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org \ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 89 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org figure-2: risk matrix representing the risk level conclusions & recommendations conclusions the study was directed to investigate the perceived risk and safety on petroleum industry of three gas fields. the results can be concluded as:  the total percentages of personnel of gas fields feeling safe with risk sources is about 81.3% which is higher than previous study flin et al (65.9%) and rundmo (64.6%).  the workforce of studied fields feeling secured is about 87.04% which is also higher than the results of flin et al (76.4%) and rundmo (83.77%)  the overall idealism of safety and contingency measures of studied petroleum fields 72.26%. it should be improved as soon as possible.  the risk level for slippery surface and slipping is moderate. actions should be required in this case within a time frame.  in case of fire and safety training, availability of personal protective equipment (ppe) and use of ppe risk level also moderate. required measures also should be taken for both cases immediately.  the risk level in case of monitoring production and work instruction, safety training and perform repair work is low. for both of cases, no actions required but concern should be given.  in case of alarm system and escape routes, risk level is low. so, no actions should be required for this case. recommendations at the end it could be added that, slippery surface cause slipping and so, a special concern should be given to reduce it as much as possible. the available personal safety equipment should be used properly for carrying out duties like monitoring production, handling equipment, function testing equipment which may keep safe from several accidents including falling objects, structural failure etc. several training such as safety training, first aid training, contingency training should be improved. if a future study conducted including a large number of fields, it would be very helpful and added a new dimension on safety research. and accidents associated with perceived risks will minimize. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 90 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org acronyms bapex=bangladesh petroleum exploration and production company limited. bd= bangladesh. iso= international organization for standardization mmscfd= million cubic feet per day. mste= molecular sieve turbo expander. uk= united kingdom. sgfl= sylhet gas fields limited. petrobangla= bangladesh oil gas & mineral corporation. ppe=personal protective equipment. references alam, m. z., 2019, hazard identification, risk assessment, and control procedure [ehs & career, tootle solutions]. almquist, b., ashir, s. and brännström, l., 2017, a guide to quantitative methods, version 1.0.1., stockholm university, sweden. http://www.chess.su.se/polopoly_fs/1.173484.1396595707!/menu/standard/file/almq uist_ashir_brannstroem_guide_1.0.1.pdf arezes, p. m. & miguel, a. s., 2008, risk perception and safety behavior: a study in an occupational environment, safety science, 46, 900-907. brazier, a., oct 19, 2016, using risk assessment matrix, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jhz5tr6pphe. accessed on: 10 march 2019. chutelkar, p. & mishra, m. k., 2019, safety in petroleum industry (hazard identification & risk assessment), international journal of research & technology (ijert), vol -8, issue 05 may 2019. cox, s.j. & cheyne, a.j.t., 2000, assessing safety culture in offshore environments, safety science,34 (2000),111-129, espeland, t.j., 2010, perception of risk in the environment of integrated operations,master’s thesis in risk psychology, environment and safety trondheim, ntnu. flin, r.h., mearns,k., gordon, r.p.e. and fleming, m.t., 1996, risk perception and safety in the uk offshore oil and gas industry, paper spe 35907 presented at the international conference on health, safety and environment, new orleans, louisiana,9-12, june-1996. imam, b., 2013, energy resources of bangladesh, 2nd edition, published by university grants commission of bangladesh, dhaka, p.59. iso, 2009, international organization for standardization, iso guide 73:2009(e/f), note3, pp-2; note-4. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 91 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.1 http://journals.e-palli.org iso, 2014, international organization for standardization, iso/iec guide 51:2014(e) jafari1, m.j. f. kouhi, m. movahedi, & allah-yari, t., 2009, the effect of job safety analysis on risk perception of workers at high risk jobs in a refinery, iran occupational health, vol. 6 (4). winter 2010. johnsen, s., ask, r. and roisli, r., 2007, reducing risk in oil and gas production operations, international conference on critical infrastructure protection, pp 83-95. mearns, k., flin, r., gordon, r. and fleming, m., 1998, measuring safety climate on offshore installations, work& stress, vol-12, no-3, pp.238-254. mearns, k., whitaker, s.m. and flin, r., 2003, ‘safety climate, safety management practice and safety performance in offshore environments’, safety science, vol. 41, no. 8, pp.641–680 nasir, f.b. and khan, m.a.i., 2014, a review over major gas blowouts in bangladesh, their effects and the measures to. prevent them in future, international journal of scientific & technology research, 3(9),109-113 rasmussen, h. b., 2013, the possibilities and challenges for accident prevention in the danish oil and gas industry, ph.d. thesis, centre of maritime health and society, faculty of health sciences university of southern denmark. rundmo, t. 1992, risk perception and safety on offshore petroleum platforms part i: perception of risk, safety science, 15, 39-52. rundmo, t. 1992, risk perception, and safety on offshore petroleum platforms part ii: perceived risk, job stress, and accidents, safety science, 15, 53-68. suslick, s.b. and schiozer, d.j., 2004, risk analysis applied to petroleum exploration and production: an overview, journal of petroleum science and engineering, 44, pp.1-9. torres, l., yadav, o. p., khan, e., 2017 perceived risks of produced water management and naturally occurring radioactive material content in north dakota; journal of environmental management, 196 (2017), 56-62, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.02.077 0301-4797 pa ge 1 pa ge 1 american journal of agricultural science, engineering, and technology (ajaset) prediction of wheat storage process under climate change: a case study of northwestern regions of tunisia amal barkouti1*, mohamed najib melki1, abdullah beyaz2, slaheddine khlifi1 volume 7 issue 1, year 2023 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v7i1.1056 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset article information abstract received: december 06, 2022 accepted: december 22, 2022 published: january 01, 2023 in this work, a simulation of the climate change impact on the wheat grain storage process in northwestern regions of tunisia was investigated based on grain aeration systems. this simulation was conducted by implementing the software package called zephyrus for a period from 2041 to 2070 during storage season from the 01st of july to the 30th of november. the model estimates grain moisture content, grain temperature, and dry matter loss. the results showed a significant potential of the zypherus strategy to maintain the grain moisture content around 12.2± 0.2% w.b. and to reduce grain temperatures from 35°c to 24 ± 1.5°c inside the silo. consequently, under these values, the wheat storage process is considered safe and preserves wheat quality during the simulated storage period. moreover, the wheat dry loss matter was about 0.8% during the whole storage period for each simulated year (approximately 0.15% per month). keywords climate change, dry matter loss, moisture content, wheat preserve prediction, zephyrus strategy 1 higher school of engineers of medjez el bab, university of jendouba, research unit renewable energies in agriculture and agro-industry (eraa), route du kef, km 5, 9070, medjez el bab, tunisia. 2 department of agricultural machinery and technologies engineering, faculty of agriculture, ankara university, dışkapı, ankara, turkey. * corresponding author’s email: amalbarkouti@gmail.com introduction climate change predictions and their repercussions have become an increasing issue, that has interested considerably the scientific community. in the previous century, global mean temperatures have risen by more than 0.5 °c (ipoc, 2007), and the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc) predicts that they will rise by 1.1 to 5.4 °c by 2100 (bale et al., 2002). in the african continent, the average temperature will increase by more than 3°c by 2080 (asafu-adjaye, 2013). of its importance around the world and particularly in african countries, agriculture was the first sector to be affected by the climate-changing trends (dinar et al., 2012; adams et al. 1990) as like as world food production (lobell et al., 2011). climate change will have significant impacts on plant growth, agricultural productivity, and trends in the world’s food supply (parry et al., 2005); as a result, it will all have a substantial impact on food security worldwide. to deal with the situation, numerous mitigating measures are being developed (nayar, 2009). one of these was safe food grain storage which is considered a way to achieve food security (jayas, 2012) and adapt to the global changing climates (unep, 2010), particularly during times when agriculture is ineffective. grain can be kept in silos, warehouses, bags, containers, conventional storage buildings, or other predetermined units (moses et al., 2015). the farmer, the miller, the importer, and the government can store grain at various points along the food supply chain for different reasons. their main objective is to satisfy customer demand for food grains. the stored grain is considered an artificial ecosystem that is constantly interacting with not only abiotic variables like temperature, relative humidity, intergranular co2 levels, and moisture content but also with biotic ones like insect pests, fungi, mites, and rodents. with time, interactions continue, and unfavorable ones lead to grain degradation (moses et al., 2015). thus, physical storage conditions, as well as different pests and illnesses that appear during the post-harvest phases of agricultural commodities, have a significant impact on product quantity and quality (rees, 2004; dowell & dowell, 2017). to forecast mass and heat transfer in grain bins during the aeration process, some researchers have created and tested mathematical models. these models have been used to assess grain moisture content, temperature, and dry matter loss, making them useful tools for more advanced control strategies and for improving monitoring processes. (frank & howard,1995; canchun et al., 2001; devilla, 2002; khatchatourian & oliveira, 2006; lopes et al., 2008). otherwise, the loss in quality and quantity of grains during the storage process compels governments to import grains to satisfy citizen demand at a significantly higher cost. however, if grains were protected and well stored, demand for imports could be decreased, saving significant foreign cash. reducing losses for grain-exporting nations should increase income for the nation and its farmers, raising the standard of life for its population. therefore, a national strategy to provide a suitable infrastructure over several years and a suitable education plan via effective extension services for grain storage managers can greatly boost (jayas, 2012). in tunisia, grain storage, in particular wheat storage, is an important process to ensure food security (lakhoua, 2019). the wheat sector has a significant gap between local demand and production (chebil et al., 2015). hence, nearly half of the wheat consumed during the past few decades was imported annually by the tunisian government. then, the cost of importing wheat is rising https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v7i1.1056 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 2 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 1-6, 2023 in tandem with its price on the global market, which raises the number of government subsidies given to the industry, particularly during the global “food crisis” period (laajimi et al., 2013). as a result, increasing wheat productivity and then managing the wheat storage process properly in tunisia became essential for raising the wheat self-sufficiency ratio (chebil et al., 2014; lakhoua, 2019). in addition, tunisia is one of the north african countries which is affected by the climate-changing trends and many studies in the literature have dealt with the prediction of tunisian wheat production under climate change (lhomme et al., 2009; bahri et al., 2019) but there is a lack of studies showing the impact of climate change on wheat storage process. hence, the objective of this work is to study the future potential of grain aeration during the storage process under climate change conditions in tunisia. this study presents the impact of temperature variability on the physical properties of stored wheat using a process simulation and real data acquisition. materials and methods data and climate scenario to describe the local effects of anticipated ambient air temperature and relative humidity on the future of the ambient aeration storage process, we used regional climate models (rcms). rcms are frequently used to offer more specific information for a specific geographic area. rcms integration is usually performed at a horizontal resolution of 10-50 km over a specific region of interest. they can offer detailed temperature and moisture information for a particular region by combining explicit resolution techniques and parameterizations tailored to greater resolutions (ipcc, 2013). in this study, the regional climate models developed by the swedish meteorological and hydrographic institute (smhi) were used to provide an hourly prediction of temperature and relative humidity of the ambient air of the north-western regions of tunisia for 30 years period from 2041 to 2070. the scenario rcp 4.5, often known as a moderate scenario, was used to assess the margin of availability of favorable hours for grain aeration. storage process model simulations were conducted by software created based on the model presented by thorpe (2001) and validated by lopes et al. (2015). the program enables the simulation of the aeration process in various air conditions. in this research, the aeration of wheat grains during the storage process was controlled by the zephyrus strategy described by lopez & steidle neto (2019). this aeration controller is based on the forecasting of air velocity and variations in temperature and moisture while air is circulated through a grain bulk. this work focused on wheat grain because it is the most grown cereal in tunisia. it occupies more than 50% of the cereal area and contributes to more than 40% of the cereal production (ma, 2012). additionally, the studied region (northwestern region) is one of the major producers and consumers of this crop (chebil et al., 2015). the input data for the simulations were initial grain temperature (35 °c, the average ambient temperature in july when starts the storage process of wheat grain in tunisia), moisture content (13 % w.b.), grain bulk density (763 kg m−3, durum wheat), geometric characteristics of the bin ( diameter 10 m, height 18 m), aeration airflow(6 m3 h-1 t-1), the local atmospheric pressure and a file containing the hourly temperatures and relative humidity of the ambient air for the storage period from july 01 to november 30 for each year according to the smhi models and according to the rcp 4.5 scenario for the period 2041-2070. data of ambient dry bulk temperature and relative humidity for the northwestern regions of tunisia were obtained from the website http://digilib. icpac.net/ figure 1: schematic image of the storage simulation process. results and discussion moisture content numerous factors, including soil temperature, solar radiation, ambient air temperature, and grain temperature, have an impact on the moisture content of grains (chang et al.,1994). during storage, the grain must be shielded from climate variability, insects, and the development of microbes to maintain its quality. the variations in air temperature and solar radiation from one season to another generate temperature gradients in the grain and thus move moisture from warmer to cooler grain areas. then, the moisture buildup in a specific grain area encourages the growth and development of fungi and insects (hunt & pixton, 1974; chang et al., 1994). the study conducted by fan et al. (1961) on the water diffusion in different varieties of wheat showed that the expression of the diffusion coefficient of moisture in wheat is a function of the reciprocal of absolute temperature. jayas (2012) reported that storage at high moisture content and high temperature promotes quick spoilage of the stored grain. hence, to store safely wheat grains under tempered weather the moisture content should be around 12-13% w.b. figure 2 presents predicted wheat grain moisture contents for the studied years. for all of the years under study, https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset http://digilib.icpac.net/ http://digilib.icpac.net/ http://digilib.icpac.net/ pa ge 3 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 1-6, 2023 figure 2: simulated wheat grain moisture content when using the zephyrus strategy for three future decades years. safe moisture contents were effectively maintained. all simulated moisture contents ranged from 13% to 12.2± 0.2% w.b. for the whole study period, which corresponds to equilibrium relative humidities between 65.8% and 62 ± 0.2% when taking temperatures between 35 °c and 24±1.5°c (figure 3) into account. according to weinberg et al. (2008) and jayas (2012), under these circumstances, the growth of microorganisms can be effectively stopped. grain temperature figure 3 presents the evolution of the average bulk grain temperatures throughout the whole simulated period. as shown, the zephyrus system reduced grain temperatures from 35°c to around 24°c from july to november for each studied year. for the first decade of years (2041-2050), the grain temperatures decrease after almost 7 days from the beginning of the storage process from 35°c to 24±1°c then this value was maintained until the end of the month october. from this later the grain temperatures were slightly decreased (22°c) which can be explained by the decrease of air ambient temperature in the autumn season. for the two other decades of years (2051-2060 and 2061-2070), the same behavior was observed with a little bit of difference in temperature values with 25±1°c for the maintained grain temperatures and then 20±1°c at the end of october. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 4 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 1-6, 2023 figure 3: simulated wheat grain temperature when using the zephyrus strategy for three future decades years. production (garcia-cela et al., 2018; meneghetti et al., 2021). figure 4 shows simulated dry matter loss of stored wheat grain for each year of the three decades years (2041 2070). the behaviors of the three decades years were similar. about 0.8% of dry matter loss was observed for dry matter loss wheat grain dry matter loss is influenced by moisture content, temperature, mechanical damage, type and severity of microfloral infection, and insects. it is equally linked to the degree of grain respiration and co2 figure 4: simulated dry matter losses when using the zephyrus strategy for three future decades years. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 5 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 1-6, 2023 the whole storage period with about 0.15% per month in each year. this result is confirmed by the authors polat (2013) and kalsa et al. (2019) who reported in their works conducted on the wheat storage process in turkey and ethiopia respectively, a 0.11% dry matter loss per month. conclusion the quality of wheat grains during the storage process is mostly affected directly or indirectly by the temperature and moisture content. the prediction of these later for a period of 30 years from 2041 to 2070 in northwestern regions in tunisia using the zephyrus strategy was investigated. the results showed the safe storage of wheat grains for the whole period. the two major factors grain temperature and moisture contents were maintained successfully around 24 ± 1.5°c and 12.2± 0.2% w.b. respectively due to the aeration control strategy. this later also makes the dry matter loss amount not significant during the whole simulated period of years with a percentage of 0.15% per month in each year. under the climate-changing conditions and the armed conflict between most cereals producers and exporters countries russia and ukraine, tunisia has to enhance research and development in wheat grains storage techniques to ensure the wheat’s self-sufficiency ratio. this study is the first one conducted on the prediction of wheat grains storage under climate change context in tunisia in which results can be improved and completed by comparison with others models of prediction and can be extended to study the potential of the wheat grains storage process in other regions in tunisia. references adams, r. m., rosenzweig, c., peart, r. m., ritchie, j. t., mccarl, b. a., glyer, j. d., et al. 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(2012). climate change and agriculture in africa: impact assessment and adaptation strategies. earthscan, london, uk. dowell, f.e., & dowell, c.n. (2017). reducing grain storage losses in developing countries. quality assurance and safety of crops & foods, 9(1), 93-100. fan, l. t., chung, d. s., & shellenberger, j. a. (1961). diffusion coefficients of water in wheat kernels. cereal chem., 38(6), 540-549. frank, h. a. & howard, l. j. (1995). development of aeration plans based on weather data: a model for management of corn stored in georgia. american entomologist, 241-246. garcia-cela, e., kiaitsi, e., sulyok, m., medina, a., & magan, n. (2018). fusarium graminearum in stored wheat: use of co2 production to quantify dry matter losses and relate this to relative risks of zearalenone contamination under interacting environmental conditions. toxins, 10, 1–11. hunt, w. h., & pixton, s. w. (1974). moisture its significance, behavior, and measurement. in storage of cereal grains and their products, ed. c. m. christensen, 1-55. st. paul, minn.: am. assoc. cereal chem. ipcc. (2013). climate change 2013: the physical science basis. part of the working group i contribution to the fifth assessment report of the intergovernmental panel on climate change, 203. ipoc (2007). report of the nineteenth session of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (ipcc). ipcc, geneva. jayas, d.s. (2012.) storing grains for food security and sustainability. agr. res., 1(1), 21–24. kalsa, k.k., subramanyam, b., demissie, g., mahroof, r., worku, a., & gabbiye, n. (2019). evaluation of postharvest preservation strategies for stored wheat seed in ethiopia. j. stored prod res., 81, 53–61. khatchatourian, o.a., & oliveira, f.a. (2006). mathematical modelling of air flow and thermal state in large aerated grain storage. biosyst. eng., 95(2), 159–169. laajimi, a., goychuk, k., meyers, w.h. & binfield, j. (2013). the tunisian wheat market in the context https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 7(1) 1-6, 2023 of world price volatility: a stochastic partial equilibrium approach. 133 eaae seminar, chania, greece. lakhoua, m.n. (2019.) analysis and management of a grain storage system. itee journal, 8(3), 13-16. lhomme, j.p., mougou, r., & mansour, m. (2009). potential impact of climate change on durum wheat cropping in tunisia. climatic change, 96, 549–564. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-009-9571-9 lobell, d.b., schlenker, w., costa-roberts, j. (2011). climate trends and global crop production since 1980. science, 333(6042), 616–620. lopes, d.c., martins, j.h., filho, a.f.l., melo, e.c., monteiro, p.m.b., queiroz, d.m. (2008). aeration strategy for controlling grain storage based on simulation and on real data acquisition. computers and electronics in agriculture, 63, 140–146. lopes, d.c., steidle neto, a.j., júnior, r.v. (2015). comparison of equilibrium models for grain aeration. journal of stored products research, 60, 11-18. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.jspr.2014.11.001. lopez, d.c., & steidle neto, a. j. (2019). effects of climate change on the aeration of stored beans in minas gerais state, brazil. biosystems engineering, 188, 155-164. meneghetti, v.l., biduski, b., tibola, c.s., junior, a. lm., de miranda, m.z., lima, m. ipm., guarienti, e.m., & gutkoski, l.c. (2021). evaluation of losses and quality maintenance of wheat during storage in a commercial unit in brazil. j sci. food agric., 1-7. https://10.1002/jsfa.11493 ministry of agriculture (2012). statistical reports, 19802012. tunisia. moses, j. a., jayas, d. s., & alagusundaram, d. s. (2015). climate change and its implications on stored food grains. agric res., doi 10.1007/s40003-015-0152-z nayar, a. (2009). cost of climate change underestimated. nature, 461(7260), 24. parry, m., rosenzweig, c., livermore, m., parry, m., rosenzweig, c., livermore, m. (2005). climate change, global food supply and risk of hunger. philos trans roy soc. b., 360(1463), 2125–2138. polat, h.e. (2013). integration the effects of different storage types on nutritional quality characteristics of some feedstuffs. j food agric. environ., 11, 897–903. rees, d. (2004). insects of stored products. csiro publishing, 192. thorpe, g. r. (2001). physical basis of aeration. in navarro, s., & noyes, r. t. (eds.), the mechanics and physics of modern grain aeration management. boca raton: crc press. 125-194 unep. (2010). connecting the dots biodiversity. adaptation, food security and livelihoods, nairobi. weinberg, z. g., yan, y., chen, y., finkelman, s., ashbell, g., & navarro, s. (2008). the effect of moisture level on high-moisture maize (zea mays l.) under hermetic storage conditions – in vitro studies. journal of stored products research, 44, 136–144. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset microsoft word 72. evaluation of heat stress on bakery worker in makurdi benue state, north east nigeria american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, engineering and technology. the subjects covered by the journal includes but not limited to: agriculture agricultural economics and agri-business agricultural engineering agricultural statistics agricultural extension and development agronomy agro-tourism animal science and nutrition applied agriculture applied economics and finance aquaculture bioinformatics big data biotechnology and biochemistry climate change and green technology collaborative engineering computer science and engineering computational biology climate change dairy science & poultry science decision support system ecotourism environmental science fisheries dental and medical science iot, ai, 4th ir, computer science, ict food science, engineering and technology genetics technology geophysics gis, gps, and remote sensing horticultural science ict for agricultural development irrigation and water resource engineering land use and development mathematics modeling of crop and animal system pathology and plant protection fisheries plant breeding and crop science post-harvesting technique and technology precision agriculture production engineering renewable energy social science and agricultural development soil science sustainable development tropical agriculture veterinary science and technology american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 25 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org evaluation of heat stress on bakery worker in makurdi benue state, north east nigeria amine, j. d.1, owhor sampson chisa2* and orafa patience nguseer3 doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5372151 abstract nigeria being a tropical nation with high temperature and some nigerian bakeries use mud oven which expose workers to direct contact with heat increasing their risk of heat stress. this research work tends to evaluate heat stress on bakery workers in makurdi, benue state. forty questionnaires were validly filled and handed in from the workers at the various bakeries. data such as age, duration of exposure as well as heat stress estimation and satisfaction level were filled in and data were analysis using statistics and results shows that heat stress reduces efficiency and productivity in workers poses health risk in workers such as heat cramps, heat rashes and in severe cases even heat stroke which may threaten the life of these workers. the results from measurements in this work has shown that bakery workers in makurdi metropolis are highly exposed to heat stress and are likely to experience one disorder or the other with possible death consequences. it was also found that heat stress is often an overlooked problem as most workers lacked proper knowledge of control measures and employers have made little or no effort to prevent heat stress disorders. keywords: bakery workers, heat exposure, heat stress, oven, temperature index, wet bulb globe. 1 department of mechanical engineering, federal university of agriculture makurdi, benue state, nigeria, +234(0)7039239777, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0867-2779 2 department of mechanical engineering, federal university wukari, taraba state, nigeria, +234(0)8064344429, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2126-7903 3 department of food science and technology, federal university wukari, taraba state, nigeria, +234(0)7066936137, https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2378-5405 *corresponding author: (email: owhorchisa@gmail.com) introduction american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 26 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org heat is a form of energy characterized by an increase or a decrease in temperature, heat may be defined as energy in transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object. stress can be defined as the brain's response to any demand. heat stress occurs when the body’s means of controlling its internal temperature starts to fail. air temperature, work rate, humidity and work clothing are all factors which can cause heat stress. climate in the work environment is an important factor in determining the physical comfort satisfaction of workers, and their comfort affects job satisfaction and performance. there are four primary variables that define climate, namely air temperature, humidity (relative humidity), air movement and radiation from surrounding objects including the sun. environmental conditions cause body temperatures to rise above or fall below normal, there is a risk of either heat stress or cold stress. nigeria being a tropical nation with high temperature and some nigerian bakeries use mud oven which expose workers to direct contact with heat increasing their risk of heat stress. heat stress reduces efficiency and productivity in workers poses health risk in workers such as heat cramps, heat rashes and in severe cases even heat stroke which may threaten the life of these workers. this research work is to establish the inherent heat stress amongst bakery workers and proffer solutions or suggestions to mitigate them. this work will help employers and owners of bakery to be more conscious of their workers’ health and see ways to improve the conditions of their facility to reduce heat stress. it would also create awareness amongst workers to be mindful of their state of health as they work in high heat intensity facilities. it would also help engineers look at ways to create or remodel bakery facilities and equipment’s in order to reduce the temperature around the working areas in bakeries thereby reducing heat stress. literature review the art of baking was brought into nigeria by some freed negroes who were well established as independent artisans in various trades. these negroes educated and christianized settled first in lagos where baking was carried out in their homes until about 1900. then, commercial bakeshops began to spring up. the eating of bread which was the main baked product at that time disseminated first along the coastline (ports) warri, calabar, portharcourt, and then inland onitsha etc. the continued growth of the bakery industry necessitated the establishment of flour mill in nigeria by the nigerian government. a baker is a worker who mixes flour, salt, yeasts, spices, sugar, and other ingredients to prepare dough, batter, fillings, etc., which are then formed into bread, cakes, rolls, etc., and baked in an oven. their work environment is an important determinant of health; it can influence health american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 27 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org positively or negatively, and for most people, work is essential for economic, social as well as physical wellbeing. occupational heat exposure is of rising concern globally with climate change drawing more consideration to this issue. whether in outdoor or indoor situations, working in excessive heat environments (temperatures exceeding 35° celsius) poses risks to workers’ health and reduces labor productivity. excessive heat exposure creates an occupational hazard of high concern, particularly in indoor and outdoor workplaces lacking effective climate control. it has been estimated that roughly 20% of the workforce hours in south east asia were lost as a result of heat exposure. projections for the year 2030 estimate a loss of around 70 million work lifeyears in labor productivity due to heat exposure and a loss of 880 000 work-lifeyears due to occupational heat stroke mortality, in indoor and outdoor workplaces. occupational health researchers have focused on heat stress in outdoor workers in the field of agriculture, construction, farming, and fishing, who are particularly vulnerable due to constant exposure to heat, especially in hot or humid weather conditions. indoor workers are also at risk if temperatures in their work environment are poorly regulated. the occupational health and safety administration (osha) has identified indoor industries at risk of experiencing heat related illnesses due to the presence of heat-generating appliances; these include bakeries, kitchens, laundries, and furnaces. further research is needed to quantify the risk of heat exposure and heat-related illnesses among indoor workers in various professions, including bakery workers. in addition to measurements of indoor temperatures, additional assessments are needed, such as personal factors and work tasks that may impact risks associated with indoor heat exposure. heat stress experienced in hot working environments occurs when the body temperature exceeds 38°c, resulting in health symptoms, such as dry skin, chills, high body temperature, confusion, dizziness, fainting, fatigue, weakness, nausea, and muscle cramps. other heat stress-related health conditions include heat stroke, heat exhaustion, heat syncope, and heat cramps. in addition, extreme heat has been associated with mental health effects. a systematic review conducted in 2018 shows evidence of a positive relationship between heat exposure and occupational injuries, mainly caused by fatigue, reduced psychomotor performance, loss of concentration, and reduced alertness. despite the risks posed by heat stress, work systems have increasingly encouraged workers to ignore symptoms of heatrelated illnesses, to maintain the work pace and avoid breaks and work interruptions. temperatures and humidity in indoor work environments may increase during hot and humid seasons, especially in workplaces that lack adequate ventilation or air conditioning. the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 28 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org presence of drinking water and emergency procedures are also factors affecting workers’ responses to heat exposure. risk factors for heat stress include individual susceptibility, such as age and gender, along with workers’ hydration levels, workplace and environment temperature levels, and work rate and activities. moreover, the effects of hot and humid working conditions may exacerbate if workers are unaware of heat-related illnesses and their prevention. the management of heat-related occupational exposures must involve risk assessment and control measures at the level of the work, the workers, and the work environment. however, regulations in low and middle-income countries (lmic) are challenged by socioeconomic factors and lack of adequate infrastructure, frameworks, and technical expertise. moreover, the tasks performed in bakeries subject workers to high levels of heat exposure resulting in health impacts if not properly controlled. most of the literature on bakery workers have focused on industrialized bakeries studying the respiratory effects of exposure to flour dust or skin irritation and allergies. other publications have also studied and assessed ergonomic hazards, mainly musculoskeletal disorders, and mental and self-rated health among bakery workers. few studies exploring heat exposure among bakery workers documented elevated heat stress exposures among those workers. research has also distinguished the working conditions and risks between traditional bakeries and industrialized bakeries. a recent study showed that workers in traditional bakeries are exposed to higher levels of heat stress when compared to workers in industrial bakeries. in addition, the incidence of heat stress among bakery workers in traditional bakeries has been shown to be 3.3% higher than those in industrial bakeries. materials and method heat stress checklist an initial survey was carried out in each of the bakeries with the help of the heat stress checklist to ascertain their working condition. each parameter is given a risk score and a brief description to help understand the score. the parameters that influences heat stress such as air temperature, radiant temperature, air velocity, humidity, clothing and metabolic rate were carefully observed as then given a risk score on the checklist according to how it is described by the checklist. questionnaires american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 29 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the questionnaire was divided into 3 sections. section a required that participants indicate their demographic information including their age, sex, job description. section b assessed their work environment by asking participant to give information about how long they have been working in the bakery, how long they work and their shifts as well as their perception of the thermal environment and how much it affects them. section c asked about experienced heat disorder and how often as well as if they have any form of education on heat stress and preventive measures. measurements of environmental parameters measurement was taken using a certified adarsh wet bulb and dry bulb thermometer. measurement was taken during 10:00am and 2:00pm when most bakeries usually start the actual baking process. the hygrometer was first recalibrated, and then measurement was taken at three levels, above the head, at chest and below the waist level and the average was calculated. air temperature measurement was gotten reading the dry bulb thermometer and relative humidity is determined by finding the differences in degrees between the dry-bulb and wetbulb readings on the horizontal scale at the top, and then reading off where this column intersects the horizontal row containing the dry-bulb temperature reading on a hygrometric chart. conversion tables to determine the level of heat stress an operator is subjected to, an approximation conversion table by u.s bureau of meteorology was used in determining the wbgt. this table does not take the variation in the intensity of solar radiation or of wind speed into account, and assures a moderately high radiation level in light wind conditions. wbgt = 0.567 × ta + 0.393 × e + 3.94.................................(1) where: ta= dry bulb temperature (°c) e= water vapour pressure (hpa) [humidity] 𝒆 = 𝒓𝒉 𝟏𝟎𝟎 × 𝟔. 𝟏𝟎𝟓𝑬𝒙𝒑 𝟏𝟕.𝟐𝟕𝑻𝒂 𝟐𝟑𝟕.𝟕 𝑻𝒂 …………………………………………........ (2) where rh = relative humidity (%) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 30 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the conversion table makes use of temperature and relative humidity to determine the wbgt. the wet bulb temperature, dry bulb temperature and relative humidity for the work environment were measured and used on the table to identify the prevailing wbgt. from is0 7243, heat stress occurs when wbgt≥31˚c. figure 1: conversion table (source: u.s bureau of meteorology) statistical analysis data received from the field was analyzed using excel 2007 (analysis tool pack) to test the hypothesis. with the help of minitab statistical software package, mean & standard deviation, & coefficient of co-relation were used for statistical analysis. results this research was conducted in ten bakeries of which two used the traditional mud oven and eight used electrically powered oven in carrying out their work. forty workers filled out questionnaires about their psychological description of their working conditions as well as other details. this is the results of the various methods used to conduct this research. heat stress checklist the mean score of the heat stress factors (parameters) using heat risk assessment checklist is as shown in table 1 and 2. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 31 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org questionnaire and observation forty questionnaires were validly filled and handed in from the workers at the various bakeries. data such as age, duration of exposure as well as heat stress estimation and satisfaction level were filled in. table 3 shows that the participants are from all age group while table 4 shows the duration which they have worked in the bakery. table 5 gives us the psychological description given by the workers of the heat stress they are faced with and table 6 tells us how much the heat stress affects their task in terms of their job satisfaction. table 7 is derived from personal observation of the relevant positions available in the bakery that are in risk of heat stress it was observed that most bakeries where this research was conducted had no personal protective clothing or heat-conserving clothing. rather, they either wear light clothing or are half-naked. measurements of environmental parameters two major hot rooms were identified at the bakery and these are (1) the furnace – which seemed to be an open space housing the oven and in some cases also the generator. this is where baking is actually carried out (2) the kneader – this is a closed room, this is where mixing, milling and pounding takes place before it is kept to rise and subsequently sent to be baked. relative humidity and air temperature were measured as used to calculate the heat load the bakery workers are subjected to. the computed result is shown in tables 8 and 9. table 1: age distribution of participants age number of workers percentage 11-20 3 7.5% 21-30 25 62.5% 31-40 10 25.0% 41-50 2 5.0% total 40 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 32 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 2: experience on the job number of workers duration 4 below 1 year 16 1 – 5 years 11 6 – 10 years 7 11 – 15 years 2 16 – 20 years table 3: workers heat level rating heat level description workers percentage 5 3 7.5% 4 13 32.5% 3 23 57.5% 2 1 2.5% 1 0 0.0% total 40 table 4: heat level satisfaction satisfaction level workers percentages 5 0 0.0% 4 9 22.5% 3 17 42.5% 2 11 27.5% 1 0 0.0% total 40 table 5: tasks and their estimated metabolic work rate job description metabolic work rate (wm-2) at the furnace 130 milling 100 pounding 110 mixing 120 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 33 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 6: heat stress at the furnace bakery heat source air temperature relative humidity heat stress furnace exposure source of ventilation a electric oven 35.5˚c 66 39.00 5hrs open air b electric oven 35.5˚c 63 38.33 4hrs open air c mud oven 36.0˚c 69 40.40 10hrs open air d electric oven 34.4˚c 66 37.50 7hrs open air e electric oven 36.0˚c 63 39.00 10hrs open air f electric oven 34.5˚c 66 37.63 5hrs open air g electric oven5 36.0˚c 50 35.98 5hrs open air h mud oven 32˚c 60 33.26 3hrs open air i electric oven 34.4˚c 66 37.50 8hrs open air j electric oven 35.5˚c 62 38.10 5hrs open air table 7: heat stress at the kneader bakery air temperature (˚c) relative humidity heat stress at kneader working hours source of heat ventilation a 36.5 66 40.41 6hrs miller none b 36 67 39.93 7hrs miller none c 38 68 43.12 6hrs miller none d 36 69 40.40 7hrs miller none e 36.5 66 40.41 6hrs miller none f 35 68 38.75 6hrs miller none american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 34 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org g 37.5 63 41.10 7hrs miller none h 34 62 36.13 4hrs miller none i 36 69 40.40 8hrs miller none j 37 64 40.64 6hrs miller none statistical analysis table 8: descriptive statistics table air temperature (oven) ˚c air temperature (kneader) ˚c relative humidity (oven) relative humidity (kneader) heat stress index (oven) heat stress index (kneader) n 10 10 10 10 10 10 min 32 38 50 62 33.26 36.13 max 36 34 69 69 40.40 43.12 mean 34.98 36.25 63.1 66.2 37.67 40.13 s.d. 1.23450 1.16070 5.27994 2.48551 1.94293 1.77602 table 9: analysis of variance for wbgt (kneader) source of variation sum of square degree of freedom mean square fcal f tab between groups 16.9874 9 1.887489 0.078832 3.020383 within groups 239.4319 10 23.94319 total 256.4193 19 table 10: analysis of variance for wbgt (oven) source of variation sum of square degree of freedom mean square fcal f tab between groups 14.19404 9 1.577116 0.036602 3.020383 within groups 430.8873 10 43.08873 total 445.0813 19 american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 35 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org discussion table 1. shows the different age groups workers belong to but the maximum number of workers are in the age group of 21-30 & 31-40 (total 87.5 %.). age is one of the important when considering heat stress especially in determining heat strain. the older a person is the more likely they are to suffer from the effect of heat; particular consideration should be given to individuals over 45 years of age. it is not advisable to post persons over 50 years of age for strenuous jobs in hot environment. but 2% of workers were in the age group of 41-50 years working in hot environment. for these employees there is a need to monitor the body core temperature, heart rate, rest pause etc. at workplace. however, there is a definite decline in maximal work capacity with age. the fall in maximal cardiac output with age probably contributes to reduced work capacity and greater susceptibility to heat injury as well. from table 2, most workers (90%) have spent over a year at their job and the 10% have spent more than 3 weeks, hence could also be said to be acclimatized. before acclimatizing to working under hot conditions as well as returning during breaks from duty, participants reported cases of illnesses as well as symptoms of heat stress. illnesses were ranging from minor fever to rare cases of yellow fever, while symptoms of heat stress such as fatigue, heat rash, headaches, heat cramps seemed to occur on daily basis or periodically as the case may be. although no worker had a medically reportable case or severe symptoms of heat illness which caused them to cease work, their symptoms indicated that the physiological systems of the body were struggling to meet the demands of thermoregulation. therefore, the primary avenue for reducing heat illness symptoms arising from this program of research is to improve the workers’ hydration status and a point worth noting is that none of these bakeries had a well-organized system providing water for workers, most of the workers had to buy their own during break time which increases risk factor. table 4 shows the assessment of the workers’ heat rating during the baking task obtained from data collected through questionnaires. 97.5% of the respondents complained of feeling hot during the frying process, of which 40% rated the heat level as very high, and were exposed to this level of heat for a minimum of four hours. table 5 shows that while most are uncomfortable with the heat level, it doesn’t have much effect to their job attesting to the fact that they are acclimatized to the working conditions. table 6 the values measured and calculated show that those at the kneader have a higher risk factor than those working at the oven. this is very unlikely hypothetically, since standing american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 36 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org nearer to the oven sends direct heat to the worker but this was the case in bakeries visited due to 2 reasons. first, the oven is located in an open space with access to open air for ventilation while the kneader is a roomy space with very few windows for ventilation. this was said to be needed to help the bread rise faster. secondly the kneader has an additional heat load coming from the milling machine as well as it was over populated. table 7 few workers worked at the oven compared to the millers, mixers as well as the pounders who work at the kneader resulting in higher temperature as well as higher humidity. this gives an average of 38mins for those working in the oven and 29mins for those working at the kneader which implies that anything further than this could cause serious discomfort and increase risk factor. according to interviews as well as reports, all bakery workers work more than the tolerance time with some working more than six hours with a 1hr – 2hr break. table 8 statistically, using the pearson’s correlation test, pearson’s correlation coefficient (r) between heat stress index at the oven and ambient temperature in the oven is 0.789. pearson’s coefficient between the heat stress index at the kneader and its ambient temperature is 0.949. this is high relative to the pearson’s correlation coefficient between heat stress index at the oven and kneader and their respective relative humidity which is 0.585 and 0.421 at the oven and kneader respectively. this shows that air temperature has a higher significant value on heat stress as a rise in temperature would also increase heat stress. relative humidity is not so significant call it depends on other factors such as water vapor pressure and air velocity. table 9 no significant difference between heat stress at the oven and heat stress at the kneader was found (p>0.05). also relationship between air temperature and relative humidity is not statistically significant (p>0.05) showing that one variable does not cause the other i.e. a rise in temperature does not necessarily mean a rise in relative humidity. the mean temperature of heat stress at oven and at kneader is significantly different from the required mean (p<0.05). also, statistically significant difference was seen between wbgt average of furnace in all bakeries (p<0.01). this issue is because of difference in bakery equipment’s and varying weather conditions during which this research was carried out. the result of the hypothesis test using anova in table 9 and 10 indicates that there is a significant difference between the indices for different workstations at fcal < ftab. ho: the period (work station) the measurements were taken had no significant effect on the values collected (results obtained). american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 37 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org hi: the period (work station) the measurements were taken had significant effect on the value (results obtained). decision: accept h0, if ftab< fcal, that is, the treatment has no effect on the parameter of interest. hence hi is rejected; accept h1 if ftab > fcal, that is, there is significant difference in the treatment with respect to the parameter of interest. hence h0 is rejected. the null hypothesis is, therefore, accepted. this implies that there was no significant difference in the treatment and method used in measuring the wbgt between the different bakeries. hence all analysis used to indicate that there is evidence of heat hazard in bakery. conclusions heat stress disorders are gentle killer diseases and must not be overlooked by those concerned in any industrial environment. in a very warm weathers like nigeria, the concern for heat stress becomes much more stringent and should be seriously monitored. the results from measurements in this work has shown that bakery workers in makurdi metropolis are highly exposed to heat stress and are likely to experience one disorder or the other with possible death consequences. it was also found that heat stress is often an overlooked problem as most workers lacked proper knowledge of control measures and employers have made little or no effort to prevent heat stress disorders. further research on heat effect of heat stress (heat strain) on bakery workers is highly recommended. references afshari d, moradi s, ahmadi angali k, shirali g-a. (2019). estimation of heat stress and maximum acceptable work time based on physiological and environmental response in hot-dry climate: a case study in traditional bakers. int j occup environ med.;10(4):194-202. arbury s, jacklitsch b, farquah o, (2014). heat illness and death among workers – united states, 2012–2013. mmwr morb mortal wkly rep.;63(31):661-680. baleshti mh. (2015). evaluating the potential risk of musculoskeletal disorders among bakers according to luba and acgih-hal indices. j occup heal epidemiol.;3(2):72-80. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 38 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org center for disease control and prevention, national institute for occupational safety and health. heat stress: workplace safety and health topics [internet]. updated 2018.accessed january 15, 2020. https://www.cdc.gov/niosh/topics/heatstress/ deveci m, kulahci y, bozkurt m, sengezer m. (2002). unusual type of burn injury caused by industrial bakery ovens. burns.;28(2):201-204. dong xs, west gh, holloway-beth a, wang x, sokas rk. (2019). heat-related deaths among construction workers in the united states. am j ind med.;62(12):1047-1057. huss rg, skelton sb, alvis kl, shane la. (2013). heat stress management program improving worker health and operational effectiveness: a case study. workplace health safety;61(3):128-133. kjellstrom t. (2016). impact of climate conditions on occupational health and related economic losses: a new feature of global and urban health in the context of climate change. asia pac j public health.;28(2 suppl):28s-37s. kjellstrom t, lemke b, otto m, hyatt o, dear k. (2014). occupational heat stress: contribution to who project on “global assessment of the health impacts of climate change”, mapua: health and environment international trust kjellstrom t, lemke b, lee j. (2019). workplace heat: an increasing threat to occupational health and productivity. am j ind med.;62(12):1076-1078. lucchini rg, london l. (2014). global occupational health: current challenges and the need for urgent action. ann glob health.;80(4):251-256. occupational health and safety administration. (2020). overview: working in outdoor and indoor heat environments. heat.updated 2020. accessed january 21, 2021. https://www. osha.gov/sltc/heatstress/ parsons k. (2014). human thermal environments: the effects of hot, moderate, and cold environments on human health, comfort, and performance. crc press. stobnicka a, gorny rl. (2015). exposure to flour dust in the occupational environment. int j occup saf ergon.;21(3): 241-249. undp. (2016). climate change and labor: impacts of heat in the workplace. united nations development programme. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 39 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org vega-arroyo aj, mitchell dc, castro jr, (2019). impacts of weather, work rate, hydration, and clothing in heatrelated illness in california farmworkers. am j ind med.;62(12):1038-1046. xiang j, bi p, pisaniello d, hansen a. (2014). health impacts of workplace heat exposure: an epidemiological review. ind health.;52:91-101. yossif ha, abd elaal em. (2012). occupational hazards: prevention of health problems among bakery workers in benha city. j am sci; vol.8, pp: 99‑108. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology knowledge and utilization of family planning methods among farming households in ondo east local government area of ondo state, nigeria wole-alo felicia itunnu, sunmola, olayinka hassan and adesida ireti emmanuel abstract the study examined knowledge and utilization of family planning methods among farming households in ondo east l.g.a of ondo state, nigeria. a multi stage sampling technique was used to select one hundred (100) farming households while descriptive statistic was used to analyse the objectives and chi square was used to test the hypotheses. the majority (61%) of the respondents were females, 79% were below 41 years of age and the mean household size was 6.0. although literacy level could be considered low as 61% had primary education. the majority (73 %) of the respondents had the knowledge of family planning and also utilized modern family planning methods. fifty eight percent (58%) obtained information from health care providers. the result of the hypotheses test indicated that there was significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the knowledge of family planning methods by the respondents and also a significant relationship exist between the sources of information and the use of family planning. the study recommended that the health care facilities should be intensified in rural areas of the country to encourage utilization of family planning methods in rural areas of nigeria. keywords: knowledge, utilization, rural, household and family planning. ________________________________________________________________________ correspondence: department of agricultural extension and communication technology, federal university of technology, akure, ondo state, nigeria. e-mail: fellymee@yahoo.com 57issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction nigeria is the most populated country in africa with a population of over 140 million, with her average growth of 2.8% annually by the national population commission (npc, 2007). population explosion as a result of unregulated fertility is a major concern for the government as this poses a major economic and health challenge to the nation. it was in this view that nigeria adopted its first population policy in 1988 titled “national policy on population for development, unity, progress and self-reliance” through the use of family planning (babalola et. al., 2012). this strategy is now enhanced by the availability of effective modern contraceptive methods. since the 1960s modern contraceptive method which includes condoms, injectable and its usages strongly advocated. many world institutions such as world health organisation (who), world bank (wb), and united nations population fund (unfpa) has been advocating for family planning usage especially in third world countries of the world. according to isaiah (2007) family planning is a way of thinking and living that is adopted voluntarily upon the basis of knowledge, attitude and responsible decisions by individuals and couples in order to promote the health and welfare of the family group, and this contributes effectively to the social development of a country. while most of the developed countries have managed to overcome issue of explosive population growth through the use and total adoption of modern family planning methods, the issue of population growth and consequent food shortage in developing countries is overwhelming (nwachukwu and obasi, 2008). between the mid-1960s and 1990, the percentage of couples in the developing world using contraception went up from an average of 9% to 53% (hamilton, 2005). still there exist a wide gap between developed and developing countries as far as family planning methods are concerned. according to who report in 2013, the case of kenya in which its fertility fell from 8.7 to 4.2 but by 1998 the fertility stall and this was as a falling donor support, resources meant for family planning are diverted as a result, the availability of use of contraceptives at health services and outreach service deteriorated. this among other factors has contributed high level of unmet needs for contraception in many developing countries. in nigeria today, the birth rates are higher than the world averages (nwachukwu and obasi, 2008). in rural areas in nigeria, women fertility stood at 5.5 and 6.2 children per woman and 4.7 children per woman in urban area national health demographic survey (nhds, 2013). around the world more families are going into the use of family planning as a mean of controlling population and increasing standard of living but in nigeria, the usage of contraceptives remain very low and fertility, population growth and unmet needs remain high. contraceptive prevalence rate (cpr) is still embarrassingly low in nigeria, according to the report released by the international women’s health coalition (ihwc); the cpr 58issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology among married women aged 15-49 years was 8% for modern methods and 12% for all methods.). however, majority of nigeria’s population (about 70%) live in the rural communities with farming as their main occupation. these rural communities have very high fertility rate and the cpr is also considerably lower in rural areas with contraceptives prevalence rate (cpr) of 8% as compared with 18% in the urban areas in nigeria (ekong, 2003). however in nigeria, decision-making concerning fertility control is for many people a deeply personal and sensitive issue, often involving religious or philosophical convictions. moreover the knowledge of family planning methods is high in nigeria; 85% of women and 95% of men age 15-49 know at least one method of family planning (nhds, 2013). but this transcends to a very little progress been made in the area of family planning in nigeria especially in the rural areas among farming households, where only 9% of women in rural areas use any method of contraceptives (ndhs, 2013). currently, the use of family planning among married women in nigeria stood at 15 % and of which 5 % uses traditional method of contraceptives which are most likely to come from the rural areas (nhds, 2013). in the rural households, decision on family planning is influenced by the husband attitudes towards it which in turns determines their wives attitudes towards the use of modern contraceptives, thus the perceived wishes of the husband may influences the wife’s attitude. the broad objective of the study was to examine knowledge and utilization of family planning methods among farming household, to ascertain the socio-economic characteristic of the respondents, to identify sources of information and types of modern family planning methods, to examine causes of low utilization of family planning methods and to assess the attitude of respondents towards the use of family planning in the study area in ondo state of nigeria. hypotheses testing h01: there is no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the knowledge of family planning methods by the respondents. h02: there is no significant relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning. 59issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology methodology the study was conducted in ondo east local government area of ondo state in which it has a population of 74,758 and a land size of 354 km². the study area, which has it ocal overnment headquarters at ( olorunduro) lies on longitude 7 0 ’ n and latitude, ’ n ( oogle earth, 0 ). this means that the state lies entirely in the tropics and has two seasons, raining and dry season which range from (march – september and october – february) respectively and had helped the people of the area to involve in farming activities. the main source of livelihood in the area was through the farming of cocoa and other arable crops such as maize, cassava etc. also, the area had a local health facility that offers family planning services to the people within the local government area. a multi–stage sampling technique was used for this study. at the first stage, ondo east local government area was purposively selected from which 4 communities were randomly selected. each community was divided into 5 wards out of which 4 wards was selected. from each ward, 25 respondents were randomly selected making a total of 25 respondents per ward and a total of 100 respondents for the whole study. to ascertain the content appropriateness of the instrument of data collection, face and content validity was carried out by experts in the field to ascertain the content appropriateness of the instrument while testretest method was used to ascertain the reliability of the measuring instrument. this was done by administering the same set of interview schedule to a particular group of respondents at two times interval in two randomly selected communities which were close to the chosen communities for the study. thereafter, the results of the two administrations were correlated and the correlation coefficient was 0.81 which was an indication that the instrument was reliable. data collected were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. results socio-economic characteristic of respondents sex distribution of respondents: findings from the study revealed that majority of the respondent were females (61%) while 39% were males. this could be attributed to the pattern of work of cocoa farmers in the study area as females were more involved in post-harvest process associated with cocoa farming. this is in line with the findings of afolabi, 2008 that in some states in nigeria rural women have virtually taken over the production and processing of crops. 60issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 1: sex distribution of respondents female male frequency 63 37 percent 53.0 26.0 total 100 100.0 source: field survey, 2015. the table below revealed that majority ( %) of the respondent’s fell between the ages of 3 -35 which is considered to be the active child bearing age. while 10% fell between the ages of 41-45. this indicated that a larger percentage of the respondent are in the business of child bearing and a means of birth control would be highly needed. table 2: age distribution source: field survey, 2015. religion of respondents: however a high proportion of respondent in the study area (80%) were of christian faith while 20% were muslim faith. frequency percent < 30 31-35 12 46 36-40 21 41-45 10 46-50 7 51-55 3 >55 1 total 100 61issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 3: religion of respondents. source: field survey, 2015. marital status of the respondent: table 4 shows that 86% of the respondents were married, eight percent divorced, two percent separated and four percent widowed. the high percentage of married respondents indicates that many of them will be in need of family planning methods as they are still in the business of child bearing. table 4: marital status source: field survey, 2015. frequency percent christianity 80 80.0 islam 20 20.0 total 100 100.0 frequency percent divorce 8 8.0 married 86 86.0 separated 2 2.0 widow 4 4.0 total 100 100.0 62issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology educational level of respondents: table 5: educational level of respondents frequency percent no primary 22 22.0 uncompleted primary 39 39.0 completed secondary 22 22.0 uncompleted secondary 15 15.0 completed tertiary 2 2.0 total 100 source: field survey, 2015 the table above revealed that majority of the respondents (39%) did not complete primary school education while 22 % did not attend any form of school, 22% completed secondary school, 15% uncompleted and only two percent completed any form of tertiary education. this indicates low level of literacy level among the respondents in the study area, the trend which can equally affect the utilization rate of family planning as adoption of family planning can be achieved through formal education. the study area is associated with cocoa farming and it is known for its high quality production of cocoa beans. however, 84% of the respondents take farming as their main occupation while 16% of the respondents engaged in other means of occupations. table 6: occupational level of respondents frequency percent farming 84 84.0 trading 16 16.0 total 100 100.0 63issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology source of information on modern family planning methods: results according to table 7 showed that 56% of the respondents got there information from health care provider, two percent from radio, nine percent from wives, three percent from the husband, three percent from friends. this clearly revealed that the major source of information on family planning is from the health care provider who informs the farmers about family planning and what method is best for them. the extension agents (ea) as well as the block extension agents (bea) in the study area should be educated and encouraged to inform their farmers about family planning especially during meeting with the various farmers group. table 7: sources of information on modern family planning methods source: field survey, 2015 types of family planning methods available: from table 8, the family planning methods available to the respondents is the modern method in which 63% of family planning users used this method while 12% used the natural method and no one used the local method. modern methods which include intrauterine contraceptive device (iucd), injection, pills, implant and condom. the result showed that majority of the respondents 51% used injection, 6% used condom and 4% used iucd. the modern method available in the study area was as a result of the presence of health care center within the study area and the high use of injectable among the respondent can be attributed to the fact that it is affordable and convenient for them to use. sources of information percentage % wife husband radio health care provider extension agent friends children 9.0 3.0 2.0 56.0 3.0 64issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 8: identification of the types of family planning methods available to the respondents local natural modern none contraceptives types withdrawal 7 basal body temp safe period 4 breast feeding 1 pills condom 6 iucd 4 injectable 51 diaphragms surgical contraceptive (12%) (63%) (25%) source: field survey, 2015. factors influencing the utilization of family planning method among the respondents: result from table 9 shows that the factors that influence the use of family planning methods among the respondent were age interval as 46% of the population ranges between 31-35 years which is considered the active child bearing age. also increase in household size also influences the respondent use of family planning as most housed hold size between 4 and 6 (58%) tend to use any method of the family planning methods. however, the high proportion of females in the study (62%) is also considered to be a factor that influences the usage of family planning. this can be attributed to the fact that females inform and pass information faster among them about family planning as this have a direct effect on the utilization of family planning. 65issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 9: factors influencing the utilization of family planning methods among the respondents source: field survey, 2015. knowledge of family planning method among respondents: the concept of family planning was well known to respondents in the study area as 73% responded ever heard of it while 27% said they had no knowledge about what family planning is. however out of the 73% of the respondents that have knowledge of what family planning is about 61% were aware of the various methods of family planning available. injection condoms iucd natural none total age interval < 30 31-35 1 11 7 25 3 2 0 4 0 3 1 1 12 46 36-40 8 8 0 2 3 0 21 41-45 2 4 3 0 1 0 10 46-50 1 1 3 0 1 1 7 51-55 1 0 2 0 0 0 3 55 > 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 total 25 45 13 6 8 3 100 household size intervals 1-3 1 5 1 0 0 0 7 10-13 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 4-6 13 28 8 3 5 1 58 7-10 10 12 4 3 3 2 34 total 25 45 13 6 8 3 100 sex of respondent female 11 40 0 6 3 1 61 male 14 5 13 0 4 2 38 total 25 45 13 6 8 3 100 66issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology table 10: knowledge of family planning method among the respondent. source: field survey, 2015 hypotheses testing h01: there is no significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the knowledge of family planning methods by the respondents. from the table below, it was revealed that there is a low probability of the observed data under the null hypothesis of no relationship; pearson chi-square statistic, x2 = 46.601, and p < 0.001. the null hypothesis is rejected, since p < 0.05 therefore is a significant relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the knowledge of family planning methods by the respondents table 11: relationship between socio-economic characteristics of the respondents and the knowledge of family planning methods by the respondents source: field survey, 2015 frequency percent yes 73 73.0 no 27 27.0 total 100.0 am aware 61 61.0 not aware 39 39.0 total 100 value df asymp. sig. (2-sided) pearson chi-square 46.601 8 0.001 likelihood ratio 46.085 8 0.001 n of valid cases 100 67issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology h02: there is no significant relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning. from the table below, the x 2 = 125.3, p value = 0.001. therefore since p < 0.05 there is a significant relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning. table 12: relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning source: field survey, 2015 discussion this study revealed that 63% of the respondent were female while 27% were males also, majority 46% of the respondent age falls between 31-35 years which shows that majority of the respondents in area were at active child bearing stage while 21% fell below 41 years of age. the prominent religion among the respondents was christianity which took 80% while 20% were muslims. however, the religion been practiced in the area does not have an effect on the utilization of family planning methods among the respondents. it was also revealed that 86% of the respondents were married, 8 % divorced, 2 % separated and 4% widowed. this shows that the utilization of family planning were much among married respondents. although, literacy level among the respondents can be considered low, as 22% had no form of formal education while 39% did not complete primary education 20% uncompleted secondary 15% completed secondary education while only 4% attained tertiary education. the dominating occupation among the respondent was farming as 84% of the respondents were farmers while 16 % were involved in other occupations. it was also revealed that high proportion of the respondents (73%) heard about family planning and 61% were aware of various contraceptives methods involved in family planning. also about 56% of the respondents claimed that information on family planning method were made known to them through the health care provider within the study area especially during natal and ante natal care. while 2% claimed that their source of information was through radio, 9% from wives, 3% from the husband, and 3% from friends; which is not in line with the findings of (bassey et. al; 2005) where the media was the value df asymp. sig. (2-sided) pearson chi-square 125.364a 8 0.001 likelihood ratio 133.786 8 0.001 68issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology predominant source of family planning information. this could be due to the fact that one of the health worker’s roles involved giving health information to their patients, which is similar to the finding of a study done in pakistan by (shah et. al; 2008) on the awareness and pattern of utilizing family planning among women attending urban health care center. this is a pointer to the importance of enhanced primary health care services in the rural communities. however, there is a significant relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning. the current study also revealed that the method of family planning preferred by the respondent was the modern method and the most used contraceptive under this method is that of injectable as 51% of the respondent used this form of contraceptive. the prevalence of modern contraceptive methods usage among the respondents was 63% with affordability and source of information are the reason for choice of contraceptive methods. however, this prevalence rate is higher than the findings of other studies in rural areas in nigeria and other developing countries. a study by (ndiaye et al; 2003) in rural senegal reported a prevalence rate as low as 1.5% for modern contraceptives. this may be due to the high literacy rate among the respondents as 70% of the respondents had one form of formal education or another. knowledge of family planning is considered the first stage toward the utilization of a contraceptive method. the knowledge of respondents about family planning was high with 73% of the respondents have good knowledge of family planning and 61% were aware of different methods associated with family planning; this mirrors moronkola et. al, 2006 in their study carried out in south western nigeria. this pattern should be expected in light of much enlightenment that is on-going on the issue of family planning in the country. however, there is a significant relationship between the sources of information on family planning methods and the use of family planning. also about 83% currently utilized one of two form of family planning within the study area as this revealed that knowledge has a relationship with utilization. however, there is a significant relationship between the knowledge and utilization of family planning. conclusion results demonstrated that good knowledge and utilization of family planning was observed among the respondents who were of child bearing age although, findings indicated that the knowledge and utilization of modern family planning method was most practiced by female respondents in the area. also, it was indicated that greater percentage of the respondents got their information from health care rather than other means. however, there were few failures recorded during the administering of family planning 69issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology method in a village called oboto but nevertheless, source of information on family planning methods within the study area rest in the hands of health care provider. this also point out to government to intensify the dissemination of information on family planning through other media source and extension agents as these will further improve the knowledge and utilization of family planning methods in the rural areas of nigeria as this gear up the country towards attaining millennium development goals. references afolabi, m.m. (2008). women as pillars of national economy in nigeria: a study of economic activities of rural women in six local government areas of ondo state. iaffe summer conference, international association for feminist economics,torino, italy. babalola, d., babalola, y., and oladimeji, a. (2012). accessing the use of family planning information among farming household in nigeria: evidence from ogun state. asian journal of rural development, 2(2), 40-46. bassey, e., abassattai, a., asuquo, e., udoma, e., and oyo-ita, a. (2005). awareness, attitude and practice of contraception among secondary school girls in calabar. nigerian journal of medicine, 14(2), 146-150. ekong, e. e. (2003). an introduction to rural sociology, 2 nd edition. nigeria: dove publications, pp. 143 –151. hamilton, p. (2005). effects of fertility decline on family well being: opportunities for evaluating population program, workingpaperhttp://www.econ.yale.edu/~pschultz/. isaiah, m.c. (2007). attitudes of farmers toward family planning programs in ehime mbano lga of imo state. pgd project report, rivers state university of science and technology, port harcourt. moronkola, o. a., ojediran, m. m., and amosun, a. (2006). reproductive health knowledge, beliefs and determinants of contraceptives use among women attending family planning clinics in ibadan, nigeria. africa health science, 6(3), 155 – 159. 70issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology national population commission [nigeria] and icf international. 2014. nigeria demographic and health survey 2013. rockville, maryland, usa: national population commission and icf international. national population commission nigeria & icf international (2013). nigeria demographic and health survey. rockville, maryland, usa. national population commission and icf international. ndiaye, c., delaunay, v., and adjamagbo, a. (2003). knowledge and use of contraceptive methods in rural sereer, senegal. santé, 13(1), 31-37. nwachukwu, i., and obasi, o.o. (2008). use of modern birth control methods among rural communities in imo state, nigeria. african journal of reproductive health, 12(1), 101-108. shah, n. a., nisar, n. and qadri, m. h. (2008). awareness and pattern of utilizing family planning services among women attending urban health care centre azizabad sukkur. pakistan journal of medical sciences, 24(4), 550-555. world health organization, (2013). new directions in maternal health by mario merialdi, and jennifer harris requejo, partnership for maternal, newborn and child health, pp. 75-80. 71issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, any engineering and technology related original and innovative works. editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh professor dr. nirmal chandra roy, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 215 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org effect of sheep dropping manure application rate and methods of propagation on the growth and yield component of cucumber (cucumis sativum) in anyigba, kogi state, nigeria musa u.t1*, yusuf m.2 and roseline j.e3 doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v5i2.100 abstract this study was conducted at crop production nursery farm, faculty of agriculture, kogi state university anyigba. the study area which is kogi state, to determine the effect of sheep dropping rate and staking on the yield and yield component of cucumber. staked and unstaked and four treatment levels (0, 10, 20 and 30 kg per hectare) were evaluated. the study was conducted as a 2x1 factorial laid out in randomized complete block design (rcbd) with three replications. treatment means were separated using least significant difference (lsd0.05). the result generated from the study showed that number of fruits, number of marketable fruits and weight of fruits. staking had no significant effect on number of fruits, but showed significant effect on number of branches, number of leaves and plant height. the staked treatment constantly performed better with higher values than the non-staked treatment. result obtained from data analysis shows that cucumber growth, yields and yield components were enhanced with the incorporation of poultry droppings across various treatment rates. hence for maximum production of cucumber staking and optimum sheep dropping should be adopted. keywords: cucumber, growth, staking, sheep dropping, yield. 1,2 & 3 department of crop production, kogi state university, p.m.b, 1008, anyigba, kogi state nigeria. *corresponding author e-mail: tankomusa005@gmail.com, phone: +2348035905724 author to handle all correspondence: e-mail: adavize70@gmail.com, phone: +2348064197762 http://journals.e-palli.org/ https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v5i2.100 mailto:tankomusa005@gmail.com mailto:adavize70@gmail.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 216 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction the cucumber (cucumis sativus) is a creeping vine that roots in the ground and grows up trellises or other supporting frames, wrapping around supports with thin, spiralling tendrils. it is of the monoecious annual crops in the cucurbitaceae family and genus cucumis. the cucurbitaceae family is reasonably large and has around 130 genera and 900 species (bidein, et al., 2017) of these, around 30 species out of 9 genera are cultivated. in a similar way to the melon, watermelon and squash, cucumber (its botanical name is cucumis sativus l.) belongs to the family cucurbitaceae (jiménez-ballesta, et al., 2018). crop physiologists have established that high yields in crop production by adapted cultivars can largely be explained by increased solar interception achieved by larger and longer-living canopies (ayoola and adeniran, 2006). the use of organic manures has been recommended for long term cropping in the tropics as slow mineralization of these manures is known to promote crop yield for a long period of time. though organic manures are usually very bulky and the costs of transportation from one location to another very high, they are not only safer sources of plant nutrients but are also environmentally friendly (eifediyi and remison 2010). they release their nutrients in a slow and steady manner to crops in the field thereby activating soil microbial activities (ayoola and adediran 2006). again, they sustain cropping systems through better nutrient recycling and improvement in soil physical, chemical and biological properties (ojeniyi, et al., 2010). organic manure has long been used by ancient farmers as a source of nutrition and its benefits have been fully realized because it is cheap and readily available (makinde, et al., 2007). with the increase in poultry production annually, there is a large quantity of poultry refuse which can be an alternative to chemical fertilizer. a lot of researches have been carried out to determine the effect of organic materials on the growth and yield of crops (akintaylor, 1986), it is important to observe that the nutrient value of different organic manure is not the same. a study by enujeke (2013) indicated that a variety of cucumber that received the highest rate of poultry manure (20 tha–1) was superior with respect to vine length, number of leaves, fruit diameter, fruit length and fruit weight at 4, 6 and 8 weeks after planting for two years. komolafe (1980) reported that the richest manure is poultry droppings, followed by cattle dung, goat dung, pig dung, and horse dung. several research have been conducted on sheep-manure vermicompost to determine its nutrient effect on cucumber plants. arancon et al. (2004) has attributed the effect of sheep manure vermicompost on cucumber plant growth to the presence of plant growth regulators and humic acid in vermicompost, which is produced by increased activity of microbes such as fungi, bacteria, yeasts, actinomycetes and http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 217 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org algae. in a research by azarmi et al. (2009) to determine the effects of vermicompost produced from sheep manure on growth, yield and quality of cucumber varieties, leaf number, plant height and chlorophyll content of cucumber varieties increased with increasing sheep manure vermicompost at 30, 60 and 90 days after transplanting. he further reported that 30t/ha gave the highest yield in terms of leaf area, stem and dry leaf weight, leaf numbers, plant height, chlorophyll content and total fruit yield. such result has been confirmed in other reports which were attributed to different factors such as varying rates of release of growth-promoting substance, improvement in soil physical properties, soil fertility and uptake of mineral nutrient (rajbir et al., 2008; azarmi et al., 2008). materials and methods experimental location the experiment was conducted at crop production nursery farm, faculty of agriculture, kogi state university anyigba. the study area which is kogi state lies between latitude 50 151 to 70 451n and longitude 50 451 and 80 451 east of the equator. mean annual rainfall ranges from 1,560 mm at kabba in the west to 1,808 mm at anyigba in the east. the dry season generally extends from november to march. during this period, rainfall drops drastically to less than 12.0 mm in any of the months. temperatures show some variations throughout the years, with average monthly temperature varying between 170c and 36.20c. the state has two main vegetation: the forest savanna mosaic zone and the southern guinea zone. it also has two main geological formations, they are: the basement complex rocks to the west while the other half is on cretaceous sediments, to the north of the confluence and east of river niger (amhakhian, et al., 2010). the soils like most soils in north-central agricultural zone of nigeria have high erodibility, structurally weak, coarse textured with low organic matter status (amhakhian, et al., 2010). experimental material and design “market more” variety of cucumber used for this experiment was obtained from techni seeds limited, kano state while sheep droppings were obtained from lokoja, kogi state. the experiment was carried out in polythene bags. each was filled with garden soil. holes in the containers were made to allow for airflow. in arriving at the sheep dropping manure rates, each pot was field with a well-mixed soil and weighed. each pot, therefore, contains soil weighing 10kg, using a furrow slice weight of 2.24 x 106kg. i.e. 1 furrow slice soil weighs 2.24 x 106kg 2.24 x 106kg soil requires 0tons http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 218 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org 2.24 x 106kg soil requires 10tons 2.24 x 106kg soil requires 20 tons 2.24 x 106kg soil requires 30tons factorial combination of sheep dropping rates of 0, 10, 20 and 30t/ha with propagation method (staked “s” and unstaked “u”) gave a total of eight (8) treatments (table 1) which was replicated 3times to give a total of twenty-four treatment units. this was laid out in a randomized complete block design (rcbd). sheep dropping rates (tha-1) propagation method staked (s) unstaked (u) 0 s0 u0 10 s10 u10 20 s20 u20 30 s30 u30 seeds were sown 2.5cm deep at the rate of 3/stand with a spacing of 60cm apart. seedlings were thinned to 1/stand, after emergence, giving a plant population of 24plants. alley pathways of 1m was made for easy access to each block. sheep dropping was applied to the soil inside pots two weeks prior to planting to enable proper decomposition and release of nutrients that would serve as starter dose for the crop. each pot was spaced with a 1m pathway. staking was done for pots that require staking 10days after emergence. cultural practices and data collection regular weeding was carried out around the plant base in each pot, along and ahead of the vines using hand, while insecticides were applied at 3 days interval. growth and yield data on plant height, number of leaves per plant, stem girth, leaf area, number of branches per plant, fruit diameter, and number of fruits per pot. data analysis. data collected were subjected to analysis of variance according to (anova) to detect the real differences among the treatment means as described by (snedecor and cochran 1967). result and discussion table 1 and 2 shows the effect of sheep dropping rates and propagation methods on growth and yield characters of cucumber in anyigba environment. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 219 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org effect of sheep dropping rates and propagation methods on growth characters of cucumber plants in anyigba, kogi state. staked cucumber plants (55.32) performed better than the unstaked plants (37.13) in terms of height (table 1). application of sheep droppings at 6 and 9wap increased significantly (p < 0.05), heights of staked cucumber plant. application of 30tha-1 of sheep droppings gave the tallest plant of 59.6 cm followed by 20 tha-1 sheep dropping application (58.15 cm) which was not significantly different from other rates at 9wap. however, at 6wap, application of 20 tha-1 sheep dropping gave the tallest plant height (44.75 cm) which was significantly different from other rates, although control pots (0 tha-1) consistently produced shortest plants across all sampling periods. this result can be attributed to the fact that the leaves on the staked plants were all exposed to greater light interception leading to a higher accumulation of photosynthesis for vegetative growth. hanna and adams (2011) reported that staking cucumber increased the fruit yield because of better light interception. the non-staked treatment consistently produced lower values in all the vegetative parameters evaluated. interactions between sheep droppings and propagation methods was significant (p < 0.05) at 9wap (table 3). staked cucumber plants were able to maximize sheep dropping application to produce the tallest plants. at 10 tha-1 sheep dropping application, the tallest plant (64.8 cm) was produced. however, this was not significantly different from heights of plants produced when 20 tha-1 and 30 tha-1 sheep dropping was applied. the unstaked plants produced the shortest plant when zero sheep dropping was applied. this however implies that application rate at 10 tha-1 is sufficient for optimum plant heights of cucumber (table 3), possibly because higher rate of manure improves moisture availability which enhanced the release of more nutrient elements for increased vine growth. this is consistent with the findings and reports of adekiya and ojeniyi (2002) and ewulo et al., (2008) who attributed increased growth of crop plants to the release of more nutrient elements through the moisture that has been made available by the manure. it is also in harmony with the report of john et al., (2004) who indicated that poultry manure released essential elements which promoted high photosynthetic activities that enhanced growth and yield of watermelon. table 1: effects of sheep dropping rate and staking on plant height, number of leaves and stem girth of cucumber in anyigba, during 2020 dry season. treatments plant height (cm) number of leaves stem girth (cm) week after planting (wap) 3 6 9 3 6 9 3 6 9 propagation method unstaked 24.74 36.25 37.13b 10.33b 16.42b 23.5b 1.07 1.47 1.58 http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 220 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org staked 12.75 27.90 55.32a 11.66a 66.09a 33.49a 1.28 1.76 1.76 lsd0.05 ns ns 5.30 1.2 2.3 9.2 ns ns ns sheep droppings 0tha-1 12.00 26.25b 53.70b 8.83b 16.84b 27.00b 1.22 1.80 1.84 10 tha-1 12.00 28.45ab 53.75b 11.33a 19.17a 41.67a 1.23 2.32 1.95 20 tha-1 13.00 44.75a 58.15ab 11.66a 19.33a 43.67a 1.17 2.29 1.97 30 tha-1 12.25 28.85ab 59.60a 12.17a 17.16ab 26.67b 1.07 2.16 2.62 lsd0.05 ns 17.30 5.30 1.2 2.3 9.2 ns ns ns interactions pm x sd ns ns * ns ns ns ns ns ns * significant at 0.05 level of probability ns not significant means followed by the same letter(s) within a sampling period is statistically not significant at 5%level of probability using n-duncan multiple range test. staked cucumber plants produced more leaves (11.66, 66.09, 33.49) than unstaked plants across all sampling periods (table 1). application of 30 tha-1 sheep dropping produced the highest number of leaves (12.17) at 3wap, which was not significantly different from 10 tha1 and 20 tha-1 application rates respectively. application of 20 tha-1 sheep dropping produced the highest number of leaves (19.33 and 43.67) at 6 and 9wap respectively. these was however not significantly different from number of leaves produced at 10 tha-1 and 30 tha-1 at 6wap while 20 tha-1 and 10 tha-1 sheep dropping rate at 9wap were statistically at par, 30 tha-1 application of sheep dropping appears to reduce leaf production. however, plants with the least number of leaves were produced by control pots (zero sheep dropping). interactions between sheep droppings and propagation methods on number of leaves were not statistically significant (p>0.05) across all sampling periods. higher number of leaves produced by cucumber plants that received 20tha-1 of sheep droppings could possibly be because the sheep droppings had established and maintained effective soil physical condition for plant growth. this is consistent with the reports of mangila et al., (2007), and enujeke et al., (2013) which indicated that manure is essential for establishing and maintaining the optimum soil physical condition for plant growth. it is also synonymous to the findings of agbede et al., (2017), and ewulo et al., (2008) who reported that organic manure is not only cheap, but also an effective source of n for sustainable crop production, but improves soil physical properties by reducing temperature, bulk, density, and increasing total porosity, if higher rates are applied. sheep dropping rates and propagation method showed no significant influence (p>0.05) on stem girth at all sampling periods (table 1). however, interactions between sheep droppings and propagation methods on stem girths of cucumber plants was not statistically significant (p>0.05) also across all sampling periods. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 221 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 2: effects of sheep dropping rate and staking on leaf area per plant, number of branches/plant, fruit diameter and number of fruits/pot of cucumber at anyigba, during 2020 dry season treatments leaf area (cm) no of branches fruit diameter (cm) no of fruits per pot wap wap at harvest at harvest 3 6 9 6 9 propagation method unstaked 13.64b 21.96b 61.05b 0.91 1.49b 5.1a 9.0b staked 26.27a 40.04a 83.92a 1.33 2.75a 4.3b 20.0a lsd0.05 1.29 10.26 7.30 ns 0.53 0.7 0.6 sheep droppings 0tha-1 22.47b 23.38b 67.63b 1.00 1.67bc 1.8c 3.0d 10 tha-1 23.03ab 32.5ab 74.04ab 1.51 2.17b 2.60ab 5.0c 20 tha-1 23.89a 32.9ab 78.94a 1.16 3.00a 3.00a 10.0b 30 tha-1 22.4b 35.2a 69.35b 1.16 1.6c 2.00bc 11.0a lsd0.05 1.29 10.26 7.30 ns 0.53 0.7 0.6 interactions pm x sd ns ns ns ns ns * ** * significant at 0.05 level of probability ** significant at 0.01 level of probability ns not significant means followed by the same letter(s) within a sampling period is statistically not significant at 5%level of probability using n-duncan multiple range test. sheep dropping rates and propagation method showed a significant influence (p<0.05) on leaf area of cucumber plants at all sampling periods (table 2). staked plants produced a larger leaf area (26.27, 40.04 and 83.92cm2) at 3, 6 and 9wap respectively. application of 20t/ha sheep dropping gave the largest leaf area (23.89, 79.98 cm2) at 3 and 9wap respectively which are not significantly different from application rate of 10 tha-1. 30 tha-1 sheep dropping gave the largest leaf area at 3wap, this was not significantly different from those of 10 tha-1 and 20 tha-1 applications. however, the control pots gave the least leaf area across all sampling periods. sheep dropping rates and propagation method showed no significant influence (p>0.05) on number of branches at 6wap (table 3). however, at 9wap, staked cucumber plants performed better than the unstaked counterpart, 20 tha-1 application of sheep dropping produced the highest number of branches (3.0) while 30 tha-1 application produced the least number of branches (1.6). significant effect of sheep dropping on cucumber plants have been reported by azarmi et al. (2009). they attributed the effect of vermicomposting on cucumber plant growth to the presence of plant growth regulators and humic acid in vermicomposting, which are produced by increased activity of microbes such as fungi, bacteria yeasts, actinomycetes and algae. this assertion has been supported by arancon et al., (2004), brown (1995), tomati et al. (1990). http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 222 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org effect of sheep dropping rates and propagation methods on yield characters of cucumber plants in anyigba, kogi state. the diameter of cucumber fruits harvested was statistically influenced (p<0.05) by both propagation methods and sheep dropping rates (table 2). the unstaked cucumber plants produced fruits with largest fruit diameter (5.1cm) which was influenced by 20 tha-1 application of sheep dropping. however, control pots gave the least yield in terms of fruit diameter. interactions between sheep droppings and propagation methods was significant (p < 0.05) on fruit diameter at harvest (table 4). unstaked plants responded well to sheep dropping rates as 20tha-1 application produced fruits with the highest diameter. however, this result was not significantly different from those obtained when 10tha-1 and 30tha-1 of sheep dropping was applied. staked plants consistently produced fruits with the least diameters. table 3: interaction of propagation method x sheep dropping application rate on the heights of cucumber plants at 9wap in anyigba, kogi state nigeria. sheep dropping propagation method 0 10 20 30 staked 51.6ab 64.8a 53.8ab 58.2ab unstaked 40.4b 51.4ab 53.6ab 55.9ab se (±) 6.7 means followed by the same letter(s) within a sampling period is statistically not significant at 5%level of probability using n-duncan multiple range test. table 4: interaction of propagation method x sheep dropping application rate on fruit diameters of cucumber plants in anyigba, kogi state nigeria sheep dropping propagation method 0 10 20 30 staked 1.0bc 1.3ac 1.1ac 0.9c unstaked 1.0bc 1.3ac 1.6a 1.2ac se (±) 0.2 means followed by the same letter(s) within a sampling period is statistically not significant at 5%level of probability using n-duncan multiple range test. table 5: interaction of propagation method x sheep dropping application rate on number of fruits of cucumber plants in anyigba, kogi state nigeria sheep dropping propagation method 0 10 20 30 staked 3.0ab 4.5ab 6.5a 6.0ab unstaked 2.0b 2.1b 2.9ab 2.0b se (±) 1.4 means followed by the same letter(s) within a sampling period is statistically not significant at 5%level of probability using n-duncan multiple range test. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 223 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org number of fruits harvested/pot was significantly influenced (p<0.05) by both propagation methods and sheep dropping rates (table 2). staked plants produced the highest number of fruits (20.0) than the unstaked plants (9.0). the peak fruit production was obtained when 30tha-1 of sheep dropping was applied. however, control pots produced the least fruit numbers. interactions between sheep droppings and propagation methods was significant (p < 0.05) on number of fruits harvested (table 5). staked plants produced the highest number of fruits at 20tha-1 sheep dropping rate which was not statistically different from other treatment means. however, unstaked plants produced the least fruit numbers consistently. the above yield parameters assessed were found to be higher on the staked plants than that vine on the ground. the result agreed with the findings of hardy and rowell (2002) who observed that the yield of super select cucumbers was higher for the trellised treatment than for the nontrellised treatment. hanna and adams (2011) reported that staked cucumber gave an average marketable yield of 25 tons/acre as against 16.4 tons/acre of the non-staked cucumber. while jansen (1985) concluded that staked cucumber produced fruits that double the quantity of the ones on the ground. the number of non-marketable fruit was higher in the non-staked than the staked treatment. this could be attributed to the poor quality in the colour of the fruit, reduced length of fruit and development of yellow bellies on the fruits, which predisposes them to spoilage. hanna and adams (2011) reported that staking brings about an increase in colour quality, fruit length and sugar content of the fruits. also, hardy and rowell et al, (2002) affirmed that staking improves the colour and lower the incidence of yellow bellies in cucumber. the improvement of fruit quality has been attributed to better growth of plant at different rate of vermicomposting (azarmi et al. 2009), this he indicated to have favored the production of better colored and quality fruit (rajbir et al., 2008). significant effect of sheep dropping on cucumber plants has been reported by azarmi et al. (2009) where vermicomposting increased number of fruits and total fruit yield of cucumber. conclusion the use of sheep dropping and staking lead to improvement in some growth and yield characters in cucumber plants. application of 20 th-1 of sheep dropping appears to be optimum for growth and yield of cucumber. staking of cucumber appears to lift the plant above the growth and therefore help to reduce excessive impart of wetting the soil which helps increase the growth of cucumber vines. however, this is a pot trial and given the fact that most farmers grow this crop in the field, there is the need for more intensive field research. for any serious conclusion to be made. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 224 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org recommendations even though there was significant growth and yield with staking and sheep dropping rate, more intensive work needs to be carried out before any cogent recommendation could be made. references adekiya, a.o., ojeniyi s.o. (2002). evaluation of tomato growth and soil properties under methods of seedling bed preparation in an alfisol in the rainforest zone of southwest nigeria. soil and tillage res, 64: 275-279. agbede, t.m., eifediyi, k., adekiya, a.o. (2017). impact of poultry manure and npk fertilizer on soil physical properties and growth and yield of carrot. journal of horticultural research. 25(1): 81–88. doi: 10.1515/johr-2017-0009. akin-taylor, a.o. (1986) soil fertility status, plant spacing and weed control interaction in okra (abelmoschus esculentus l moenh) m.sc thesis presented to the department of agronomy university of ibadan nigeria, 78pp. amhakhian, s.o. (2002). evaluation of phosphorus status in some soils of kogi state of nigeria. ph. d thesis submitted to the post graduate school, ambrose alli university, ekpoma, nigeria, 163pp. arancon, n.q., edwards, c.a., bierman, p., welch, c. and metzer, j.d. (2004). influence of vermicomposts on field strawberries: effect on growth and yields. bioresour. technol. 93: 145-153. ayoola, o.t and adediran, o.n. (2006) influence of poultry manure and npk fertilizer on yield components of crops under difp: 1336-1392. azarmi, r., sharifi, z.p., satari, m.r. (2008). effect of vermicompost on growth, yield and nutrient status of tomato (lycopersicom esculentum). pak. j. biol. sci., 1(14): 17971802. azarmi, r, mousa, t.g. and behzad, h. (2009). the effect of sheep-manure vermicompost on quantitative and qualitative properties of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) grown in the greenhouse. african journal of biotechnology, 8 (19): 4953-4957. bidein, t., lale, n.e.s and zakka, u. (2017). efficacy of combining varietal resistance with organic fertilizer application in reducing infestation of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) by insect pests in the niger delta. international journal of health and psychology research, 5(3): 22-36. brown, g.g. (1995). how do earthworms affect micro floral and faunal community diversity? plant soil. 170: 209-231. eifediyi, e.k. and remison, s.u. (2010). growth and yield of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) as influenced by farmyard manure and inorganic fertilizer. journal of plant breeding and crop science. 2(7): 216-220. enujeke, e.c. (2013). growth and yield responses of cucumber to five different rates of poultry manure in asaba area of delta state, nigeria. international research journal of agricultural science and soil science. 3(11): 369-375. ewulo, b.s. (2008). effect of poultry and cattle manure on sandy clay loam soil. j. anim. vet. sci. 4: 839-841. hanna, h.y. and adams, a. j. (1991). staking fresh market cucumber gives higher yields. a long-term research report pro-society; 104: 237-240. hardy, c. and rowell, b. (2002). trellising slicing cucumber in western kenturcky hort bulletin; 3: 15-18. http://journals.e-palli.org/ doi:%2010.1515/johr-2017-0009. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 225 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org jiménez-ballesta, r., garcía-navarro, f.j., garcía-giménez, r., trujillo-gonzález, j.m., iñigo, v. and asensio, c. (2018). agro-ecological analysis of cucumber (cucumis sativus l.) crops in orchards in a mediterranean environment. journal of agriculture and crops, 4(3): 16-28. john, l.w., jamer, d.b., samuel, l.t., warner, l.w. (2004). soil fertility and fertilizers: an introduction to nutrient management, pearson education, india. pp 106-53. komolafe. (1980). in: egene e. a. ‘effect of organic and inorganic fertilizer on the growth, development and yield of okra (abelmoschu s esculentus l. moench) in kogi state’, b. agric project submitted to the department of crop production, kogi state university, anyigba. 2011, 37pp. makinde, e.a., ayoola, o.t. and akande, m.o. (2007). effects of organo-mineral application on the growth and yield of egusi melon. australian j. basic appl. sci, 1: 1519. mangila, e., tabiliran, f.p., naguit, m.r.a., malate, r. (2007). effect of organic fertilizer on the yield of watermelon. threshold 2, pp 27 35. ojeniyi, s.o., awodun, m.a and odedina, s.a. (2010). effect of animal manure amended spent grain and cocoa husk on nutrient status, growth and yield of tomato. international journal of agricultural research, 2(4): 406-410. rajbir, s., sharma, r.r., satyendra, k., gupta, r.k., patil, r.t. (2008). vermicompost substitution influences growth, physiological disorders, fruit yield and quality of strawberry (fragaria × ananassa duch.). bioresour. technol, 99: 8507-8511. snedecor, g.w and cochran, w.g. (1967). statistical methods, 6th edition.; lowa state university press: u.s.a, pp: 465. tomati, u, galli e., grappelli, a., dihena, g. (1990). effect of earthworm casts on protein synthesis in radish (raphanus sativum) and lettuce (lactuca sativa) seedlings. biol. fert. soil. 9: 288-289. http://journals.e-palli.org/ american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology computational study of canary greenhouse side wall and roof vents opening effect on nocturnal airflow and climate patterns hassan majdoubi 1,3*, hicham fatnassi 2 , thierry boulard 2 , allal senhaji 3 , salma elbahi 1 , hassan demrati 4 , m’hamed mouqallid 3 , lahcen bouirden 4 abstract the following paper presents a computational fluid dynamic (cfd) comparative study of the effect of side wall and roofs vents openings on canary greenhouse airflow circulation and climate distribution under different ventilation processes. the investigation was conducted in a one hectare canary greenhouse type, which is the most widespread type in the whole mediterranean and along the atlantic coast area of morocco, especially in souss vally region. the simulations were performed with the commercial code cfd2000 based on the solution of the partial differential equations, which describe the flows, and was obtained by discretizing the space and time and solving the transport equations on the spatial grid as difference equations, used a finite volume discretization. the standard two equations k-ε model was used to describe the turbulent transport. the influence of external factors such the cover temperature, the wind speed, on the flow was simulated by boundary conditions, these values were obtained from experimental results. simulations were conducted with a fixed wind speed equal 1.05 m/sec, tomato crop rows oriented north-south and the ventilation openings are continuous and equipped with insects screen type 20/10. results reveal that ventilation opening arrangements strongly affects the greenhouse wind speed, which can generate a heterogeneous climate, especially during daytime. but in the other hand, results confirm that there is no significant effect of the side wall vents opening on canary greenhouse air temperature and humidity fields. key words: greenhouse, cfd, insect screen, ventilation openings, climate ___________________________________________________________________________ 1 laboratoire de recherche scientifique et pédagogique au monde méditerranéen, crmef meknès-tafilalet, meknès, maroc, majdoubi76@yahoo.fr 2 inra, univ. nice sophia antipolis, cnrs, umr 1355-7254 institut sophia agrobiotech, 06900 sophia antipolis, france 3 equipe de recherche en energétique et mécanique des fluides, ensam meknès, maroc 4 laboratoire de thermodynamique et energétique (lte), faculté des sciences, agadir, maroc *corresponding author 72issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology introduction greenhouse production technology systems, no matter where, consist of fundamental climate control components, and depending on their design and complexity, they can provide a greater or lesser amount of climate control, and subsequent plant growth and productivity. temperature and humidity are the most important parameters of the greenhouse climate that needs to be controlled in order to achieve optimal plant growth and maximize the yield. during day time especially in hot climate conditions, the major concern for greenhouse climate management is to extract the excess energy. this can be obtained by removing the extra heat through air exchange by means of ventilation openings. contrarily, by night, especially in cold climate conditions, the challenge for greenhouse growers is to keep the heat received during the day in order to have a higher inside temperature than outside. this can be realized by using an internal curtain and/ or closed the ventilations openings. natural ventilation is most important for controlling the temperature and humidity level. several studies were been conducted on ventilation rate effect on airflow and microclimate distribution. feuilloley et al., 1994, suggested a simple and efficient way for a grower or constructor to determine the dimension of the vents of natural ventilation for tunnel greenhouses in mediterranean climate. boulard et al., (1995 a & b), have studied by measurements the air exchange rate of a twin-span plastic greenhouse with continuous roof vents and by simulation. kittas et al., (1995 & 1996), studied again the ventilation in the same greenhouse as boulard et al., (1995) presented a non-dimensional ventilation function per unit of greenhouse window and ground areas, respectively. sase et al., (2006), have analyzed the air movement and their effect on microclimate uniformity in a single span ventilated greenhouse. they show that the internal air movement in a naturally-ventilated greenhouse is affected by many factors such as wind velocity, wind direction, temperature difference between internal and external air, greenhouse structure and vent configuration that includes size, shape and arrangement of vent openings. also willits (2006) examined the effect of airflow rate, outside relative humidity, and canopy size on the behavior of the evapotranspiration coefficient and upon thermal stratification. fatnassi et al., (2009), experimental study confirmed the dependence of the greenhouse tunnel ventilation on wind direction and crop status, results show that the air exchange rate of a tunnel type greenhouse decreases with crop height, the high leaf density near the ventilation opening area causing an additional air pressure drop. more recently, the coupled approach between energy balance simulations and computational fluid dynamics was used by piscia et al., (2015), in order to analyze the effects of 73issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology ventilation on greenhouse climate under different sky climate conditions, the study‟s results indicate that ventilation during the night-time, in winter time, improves greenhouse climate; in the clear-sky case, relative humidity was reduced and the temperature was raised since ventilation reduced or eliminated thermal inversion, whereas in the covered-sky situation, ventilating reduced the humidity content, but the temperature dropped. canary and spanish „parral‟ greenhouse are naturally ventilated through the combination of sidewalls, operated manually, and opened fixed roof ventilators openings. unfortunately, up to now, very few studies were conducted on canary greenhouse ventilation openings effect on airflow and microclimate distribution. demrati et al., (2007), have used the energy balance method to predict the greenhouse ventilation rate of a banana crop canary greenhouse. some authors used computer programs to investigate the influence of insect screens and predict the inside microclimate distribution, fatnassi et al., (2003 & 2006) have characterized the inside climate distribution and the air exchange rate of 0.5 ha canary type greenhouse, equipped with insect screens (6×6) on side and roof ventilation openings, then used these data for the validation of a three dimensional cfd simulation model. campen (2003) and molina-aiz (2004) have analyzed the effect of wind speed and direction and the ventilation openings design on natural ventilation of a spanish „parral‟ greenhouse equipped with screened top and side ventilation. result obtained by majdoubi et al., (2007), showed that the relatively “bad” ventilation performance of canary greenhouse is not a result of the low value of the greenhouse wind−related ventilation efficiency coefficient (cw) but a result of the low value of the discharge coefficient (cd), caused by a high pressure drop along the air circulation. this latter is generated both by the use of fine insect screens with small openings and obstruction due to the crop rows orientation which was perpendicular to the prevailing wind direction. as a previous cfd study, majdoubi et al., (2009), have analyzed the air circulation and the distributed climate during daytime in a 1-ha canary type tomato greenhouse in the coastal area of southern morocco. analyses show that even with low outside wind speed, the outside wind governs the inside airflow, inducing a strong wind wise air current above the canopy and a very slow reverse flow inside the crop canopy. the weak air exchange within the canopy governs the climate at this level, with a major increase in air temperature and a more moderate increase in specific humidity. keeping in mind these researches, in this paper, was designed a 3d cfd model to investigate the effect of different ventilation openings configurations on canary greenhouse climate during night time. simulation conducted in the same 74issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology greenhouse already studied by majdoubi et al., (2009) by using a commercial cfd package (cfd2000 ® / storm), the airflow circulation, temperature and humidity fields within a real large scale moroccan canary greenhouse (1.125 ha area) equipped with insect screens (20/10) on the roof and sidewalls ventilation openings. a realistic model based on energy, mass and momentum exchanges was considered. as the regime in greenhouse is turbulent, the turbulent transfers were described by a k-ε model. likewise, the dynamic influences of insect screens and tomato crop on airflow movement were modeled by means of the concept of porous medium with the boussinesq assumption. atmospheric radiations contribution was included in the model by customizing the roof cover temperature deducted from its energy balance by means of view factor law. also, the cfd code was customized in order to simulate, in each element of the crop cover, the sensible and latent heat exchanges between tomato crop and greenhouse. the cfd model i. fluid flow equation the velocity field u, and the associated temperature field t or water vapor content w can be deduced at any time from the resolution of the mass, momentum and energy balances: (1) where is the studied variable, either the three components of the speed vector, the temperature t or a given mass component such as the air humidity content w,  is the diffusion coefficient of the quantity  , s the source term and ju the speed component. the governing equations are discretized following the procedure descripted by patankar (1980). this consists of integrating the governing equations over a control volume. theses equations are numerically solved using a finite volume code cfd2000 using the piso algorithm developed by issa (1985) (cfd2000 ® manual, 2004). this code also allows for the modeling of the turbulent constraints by means of the standard k- turbulence model (launder, 1974). ii. flow through a porous medium in order to include the drag effect inducted by the insect screens and the crop cover, into our cfd study, the insect screens and the crop cover were simulated as porous medium and the air flows governed by the darcy-forchheimer equation (2):          s xx u x j jj j j j )()( 11         75issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology     )( 2ukcuks f  (2) where u is the air speed,  is the dynamic viscosity of the fluid, k is the permeability of the porous medium and is the non-linear momentum loss coefficient. the values of the aerodynamic proprieties (k and cf) of the porous medium (screen) were calculated using relations from literature, which correlate these proprieties with the porosity (miguel, 1997) 1,69103,44 k (3) 2,132 /104,30 fc (4) where  is screen porosity, it can be deduced from the dimensions of the thread [21]:  ))((. dldlll  (5) where l = 0.788 mm and  = 0.255 mm are mesh‟s length and width respectively, and d = 0.28 mm, is the wire diameter. for the crop, this sink of momentum is proportional to the leaf density and it may be expressed by unit volume of the cover by the commonly used formula (bruse, 1998): 2uclais d (6) where lai is the leaf area index and cd is the drag coefficient of the vegetal cover. for a mature greenhouse tomato crop, haxaire (1999) found 0.32dc , using wind tunnel facilities. for the crop and the range of air speed observed into the cover, the term in u of equation (2) can be neglected in front of the quadratic term and the non-linear momentum loss coefficient cf and the permeability k of the medium can be deduced from the combination of equations (2) and (6): df claikc  (7) for our simulations, the tomato crop cover was assimilated to a unique 2.6 m high parallelepiped block of porous medium with the same length and width than the greenhouse and with a leaf area index, lai, equal to 3, the drag coefficient cd being equal to 0.32 (haxaire, 1999) iii. simulation of dynamic, thermal and hydrous effects of the crop cover the coupled sensible and latent heat balances were considered at crop level by means of the equations describing respectively the sensible and the latent exchange, within each mesh of the crop assimilated to a porous medium, between the greenhouse air and the solid matrix of the 76issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology porous medium. the radiative flux, reaching each mesh of the crop cover was assimilated to a "volumic heat source boundary condition" and partitioned into convective sensible and latent heat flux (water vapor) depending on the heat and water exchanges between air and the virtual solid matrix representing the crop cover and characterized by its surface temperature: 0 latsensnet qqr (8) the sensible heat flux senq can be expressed with respect to the difference of temperature between inside air and the canopy:   aivpsen rttlaicq   (9) and the latent heat flux latq deduced from a similar relation :     saivevlat rrwwlaillq  *3 1  (10) where pc and  are respectively the specific heat of air at constant pressure (j kg -1 k -1 ) and the air density (kg m -3 ), it is the greenhouse air temperature (k), vt is the vegetation temperature (k), ar the aerodynamic resistance between the leaf and the air within each mesh (s m -1 ), vl is the latent heat of vaporisation of water (j kg -1 ), * vw is the saturated water content of the air at vegetation temperature (kg kg -1 ), iw is the air water vapor content (kg kg -1 ), sr is the leaf stomatal resistance (s m -1 ) and el the lewis number. in order to take into account these new exchanges, the cfd code was customized by means of a "source model" (haxaire, 1999): )var.( iabledependentvaluecoefsource  (11) where the different terms of this equation were identified with the terms of the sensible and latent heat transfer equations between the crop cover and the air within each mesh, i.e. for the temperature : arcplaicoef  and vtvalue  , and for air humidity: saev rrlllaicoef  3 1 ... and vwvalue  . 77issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology the aerodynamic resistance ar was deduced from the air speed within each mesh:   5.0 0.288 udcr vpa   (12) where vd is the characteristic length of the leaf (m), iu the interior air speed (m s-1),  is the air thermal conductivity (w m -1 k -1 ) and  is the air viscosity. the radiative flux was considered as not limiting and the tomato leaf stomatal resistance deduced from air temperature and saturation deficit (boulard et al., 1991):                   )1629106.107(0.34exp0.111 max 237.5 7.5 min dwrr i t t ss i i (13) where: 1150 min  msrs et mbard 10max  tomato crop temperature and humidity can be customized and calculated in simulation model according to the following equations (majdoubi et al., 2009):         ). )( ( 2 1 . int int v t a v vp a f lai r ww l dz zdr laic r tt   (14)              saa a s faf a f s rrr w r w worww r ww r 11 /)()( int int  (15) with lai is the crop stand leaf area index and r(z) is the global radiation inside the greenhouse v. meshes and boundary conditions the computational grid used cartesian body fitted coordinates and after several trials with different densities, the calculations were based on a 192 by 44 by 112 grid with finer resolutions were imposed near soil, walls and roof, due to stronger thermal gradients (figure 1) (majdoubi et al., 2009). the boundary conditions prescribed a null pressure gradient in the air, at the limit of the computational domain. the outside air speed was perpendicular to the west–east sidewalls ventilation openings with a measured value equal 1.05 ms -1 . the driving force of natural convection is the wind force and buoyancy force arising from small temperature differences within the flow according to the boussinesq hypothesis. the averages and standard deviations of the climate boundary conditions are summarized in table 1. 78issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology figure 1.computational grid of the whole domain for the cfd simulation (greenhouse, tomato crop and insect screens) table 1. experimental measurement (mean and s.d) performed between 2 and 5 h (end of night) during 3 days during summer time and used as boundary conditions for the simulation parameters mean s.d outside temperature et (°c) 18.67 1.05 outside relative humidity ehr (%) 91.49 3.6 sky temperature tsky(°c) 6.23 0.75 crop cover temperature vt (°c) 18.11 1.23 soil surface temperature sit (°c) 20.34 0.98 wind direction d v (degré) 120.11 10.45 wind speed u (m/s) 1.05 0.023 solar radiation (w/m 2 ) 0 0 net radiation rnet (w/m 2 ) -9.15 0.53 inside soil surface flux fs (w/m 2 ) -15 1.21 materials and methods i. site and greenhouse description the experimental greenhouse is a large scale commercial canary plastic greenhouse covered with a 200 µm thickness single layer polyethylene plastic. its surface occupies 1.125 ha (90 m length and 125 m width) with a height of 5 m at the gutter and 5.5 m at the ridge and was surrounded by similar greenhouses. the orientation of its spans and tomato crop rows was north-south, i.e, perpendicular to the direction of the prevailing sea wind. 79issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology greenhouse ventilation was performed by means of seventeen roof ventilation openings (0.6×125 m 2 each, total of 1.275 m 2 ) covered with insect screens (20 meshes.cm -1 in width, 10 meshes.cm -1 in length with a wire diameter of 0.28 mm). the sidewalls ventilation openings were equipped with similar insect screens. the maximal opening areas reached 875 m² for the west-east sides and 630 m 2 for the north-south sides. during the experiment, the roof and sidewalls openings were maintained unchanged and equal to 1,275 m 2 and 1,505 m 2 respectively (figure 2). the greenhouse was occupied by a tomato crop (solanum lycopersicum, cv. gabriella) planted with a plant density of 1.8 plant m -2 and north-south oriented rows, i.e. perpendicular to the prevailing see breeze direction coming from west. figure 2. schematic view of the studied greenhouse, its ventilation system and the surrounding. ii. inside and outside climatic parameters measurements the following parameters were systematically recorded:  the inside net radiation rnet was monitored by means a net radiometer (q-7, campbell scientific ltd, uk), situated between the top of the crop canopy and the polyethylene film of the roof.  the inside conductive heat flux exchange at soil surface fs which was measured by means of a conductive flux meter (hft3, campbell scientific ltd, uk) situated 1 mm below the soil surface. 80issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology  the inside and outside air temperature t and relative humidity hr were measured by means of thermo-hygrometers probes (hmp45 ac, vaisala, etoile internationale, paris)  the inside soil surface, roof cover, tomato leaf temperatures were measured by means of thermocouples (copperconstantan) which were stuck on the plastic or positioned 1mm below the soil surface together with fine thermocouples which were inserted in the principal vein of the terminal leaflet on the lower face of a leaf.  the outside wind speed u and direction dv were measured by means of a cup anemometer and a wind vane (w200p, campbell scientific ltd, uk) located 8.5 m high on a mast situated 3 m over the greenhouse ridge (a 100r. campbell scientific ltd, uk).  the outside global radiation rgo was measured by means a pyranometer (sp-lite, kipp & zonen, campbell scientific ltd, uk). the parameters described in table 1 were systematically recorded, in order to determine the simulation boundary conditions and to validate the simulation model. results and discussions after validation of our model (majdoubi, 2007) details of air wind speed, temperature and specific humidity patterns in vertical or longitudinal profiles of the three studies cases: i) the 4 sidewall closed (tpf), ii) the north and south sidewall closed (pnsf) and iii) the 4 sidewall opened (tpo), were presented in figures 3 to 13. i. airflow circulation for an outside wind direction perpendicular to the roof ventilation openings (i.e. west-east). figure 3, illustrates a vertical cross-section along the flow direction in the middle of the greenhouse for the three configurations. it shows the development, at the level of crop cover, of a reverse flow from the leeward end to windward end part of the greenhouse for the three studies configurations, the wind speed at this level being much lower than above vegetation. however, it is noted that, with a north-south side wall ventilation opening closed, the velocity above the canopy is greater than for the other configurations. velocity profiles are similar in the case where the sidewall ventilation openings are fully closed or open, either in or above the vegetation. 81issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology it therefore appears that, paradoxically, the closure of the north-south sidewall ventilation openings contributes significantly to increase the air exchange in the greenhouse, the roof ventilation opening also contributing significantly. the air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse at heights of 1, 3 and 4 m were reported in figures 4, 5 and 6. results confirm the results of the previous figure concerning the airflow. the velocities in the vegetation at 1m above the soil surface are low in all three cases, with however a slight increase of wind speed in the case where the north and south sidewalls ventilation opening are closed. at the level of 3 m and 4 m above soil area, we also note that with a north and south sidewalls ventilation openings closed, the wind speed is highest in the greenhouse. consequently, we can conclude that the contribution of the west sidewall ventilation opening, limited of an effect in the first 30 meters from the windward of the ventilation opening. after these are the roof ventilation openings which feed the air circulation in the greenhouse. these results confirm that greenhouse air velocity is governed mainly by roof ventilation openings at the gutter and it appears clearly that the roof openings are alternatively acted as air entrances and exits, which confirm the results observed by majdoubi et al., 2009. figure 3. modeled profile of mean horizontal wind speed in the center of the greenhouse with three different vent configurations. figure 4. modeled horizontal air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along west–east direction at height 1m above soil surface. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 h e ig h t, ( m ) velocity, (m,s-1) tpf pnsf tpo -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 v e lo c it y, (m ,s -1 ) length( westeast) ( m) tpf pnsf tpo 82issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology figure 5. modeled horizontal air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along west– east direction at height 3m above soil surface. figure 6. modeled horizontal air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along west–east direction at height 4m above soil surface. figures 7 and 8 illustrate the horizontal velocity profiles respectively at 1 and 4 m above the ground (from north to south). results show that the north opening and south one contribute mainly to increase in the air wind speed only near the sides (up to 4 m), for the profile practiced at 1 m above the ground. figure 7. modeled horizontal air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along northsouth direction at height 1m above soil surface. figure 8. modeled horizontal air velocity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along northsouth direction at height 4m above soil surface. ii. temperature and humidity patterns figures 9 and 10 illustrate respectively the vertical profiles of simulated air temperature and specific humidity in the center of the greenhouse respect to the height. we can observe through the previous figures that there is no significant difference of air temperature and specific -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 v e lo c it y , (m ,s -1 ) length (weast-east), (m) tpf pnsf tpo -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 v e lo c it y , (m ,s -1 ) length (westeast), (m) ptf pnsf pto -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 v e lo c it y , (m ,s -1 ) width (north-south), (m) tpf pnsf tpo -0,2 0 0,2 0,4 0,6 0,8 1 1,2 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 v e lo c it y , (m ,s -1 ) width (north-south), (m) tpf pnsf tpo 83issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology humidity between the three cases except at the soil surface where it is found that the temperature and specific humidity were higher (by about respectively 0.5° c and 5.66 10 -5 ) in the case where the four sidewalls ventilation openings ware open. figure 9. modeled vertical profile of air temperature in the centre of the greenhouse between two successive roof openings. figure 10. modeled vertical profile of air specific humidity in the centre of the greenhouse between two successive roof openings. figures 11 and 12 show the air temperature and specific humidity profiles respectively along the length of the greenhouse at 1m above the ground. it is clear that the closing or opening of the sidewalls has no significant effect on canary greenhouse air temperature during the nighttime, but we can observe a slight increase of specific humidity for the case with all side wall ventilation openings were open. figure 11. modeled horizontal profiles of air temperature in the centre of the greenhouse from the west to the east at 1m high above soil surface. figure 12. modeled horizontal profiles of air specific humidity in the centre of the greenhouse from the west to the east at 1m high above soil surface. the horizontal profiles of air temperature and specific humidity respectively at 1m above the ground as a function of the width of the greenhouse (from north to south) were plotted in figure 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 290 291 292 293 294 h e ig h t, ( m ) temperature, (k) tpf pnsf tpo 84issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 12 and 13, we can observe that temperature and specific humidity values are the same for all configurations and that the climate is homogeneous at the same height. figure 13. modeled horizontal air temperature profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along north-south direction at height 1m above soil surface. figure 14. modelled horizontal air specific humidity profiles across the middle of the greenhouse along north-south direction at height 1m above soil surface. conclusion a 3d numerical simulation model of large scale canary greenhouse was developed and validated. based on our results for the three vents opening configurations studied (the 4 side wall vents opening closed, the north-south side wall vents opening closed and the 4 side wall vents opening opened), it appears that during night time there is no significant effect of side wall vents opening on canary greenhouse wind speed, temperature and humidity values compared with the outside climate. so, we can make the following points: the opening of the forth greenhouse sidewall is not the configuration which can allows a maximum air exchange and therefore the moisture management related to the transpiration of the crop. the closure of the forth is accompanied by a limitation of the greenhouse air velocity, and thus renewed, but curiously does not induce increase moisture in the vegetation. this is paradoxical but is not very well explained. the opening only of the side wall located upwind and downwind accelerates the greenhouse air circulation which thus enables to remove excess moisture generated by perspiration of culture. 85issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology references boulard, t., & baille, a. (1995). modelling of air exchange rate in a greenhouse equipped with continuous roof vents. journal of agricultural engineering research, 61, 37-48. boulard, t., & draoui, b. (1995). natural ventilation of a greenhouse with continuous roof vents: measurements and data analysis. journal of agricultural engineering research, 61, 27-36. boulard, t., baille, a., mermier, m., & villette, f. (1991). mesures et modélisation de la résistance stomatique foliaire et de la transpiration d‟un couvert de tomates de serre. (measurement and modeling of tomato leaf stomatal resistance and transpiration in greenhouse conditions). agronomie, 11(4), 259–274. bruse m. (1998). development of a numerical model for the simulation of exchange processes between small scale environmental design and microclimate in urban areas. ph.d. thesis. university of bochum. campen, j. b., & bot, g. p. a. 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(1994). natural ventilation of plastic tunnel greenhouses in the mediterranean. plasticulture, 104, 33−46. 86issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology majdoubi, h., boulard, t., fatnassi, h., & bouirden, l. (2009) airflow and microclimate patterns in a one-hectare canary type greenhouse: an experimental and cfd assisted study. agricultural and forest meteorology, 149, 1050–1062. haxaire, r. (1999). caractérisation et modélisation des écoulements d'air dans une serre (characterization and modeling of air flows in a greenhouse). ph.d. thesis de l'université de nice, sophia antipolis., 148p. issa, r. i. (1985). solution of the implicity discritized fluid flow equations by operator-splitting. journal of computational physics, 62, 40-65. kittas, c., boulard. t., mermier, m., & papadakis, g. (1996). wind induced air exchange rates in a greenhouse tunnel with continuous side openings. journal of agricultural engineering research, 65, 37-49. kittas, c., draoui, b., & boulard, t. (1995). quantification of the ventilation rate of a greenhouse with a continuous roof opening. agricultural and forest meteorology, 77, 95-111. launder, b. e., & spalding, d. b. (1974). the numerical computational of turbulent flows. computer methods in applied mechanics and engineering, 3, 269-289 majdoubi, h., boulard, t., hanafi, a., bekkaoui, a., demrati, h., fatnassi, h., nya, m., & bouirden, l. (2007). natural ventilation performance of a large scale canary greenhouse equipped with insect screens. transections of asae, 50(2), 641−650. majdoubi, h. (2007). contribution à la modélisation du microclimat des serres. phd thesis, université ibn zohr, faculté des sciences d‟agadir, no d55/2007, 215pp. miguel, a. f., van den break, n. j., bot, g. p. a. (1997). analysis of the airflow characteristics of greenhouse screening materials. journal of agricultural engineering research, 67, 105-112. molina-aiz, f. d., valera, d. l., & alvarez, a. j. (2004). measurement and simulation of climate inside almeria-type greenhouses using computational fluid dynamics. agricultural and forest meteorology, 125, 33-51. patankar, s. v. (1980). numerical heat transfer and fluid flow. hemisphere, new york. 87issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology piscia, d., muñoz, p., panadès, c., & montero, j. i. (2015). a method of coupling cfd and energy balance simulations to study humidity control in unheated greenhouses. computers and electronics in agriculture, 115, 129–141. sase, s. (2006). air movement and climate uniformity in ventilated greenhouses. acta horticulturae (ishs), 719, 313-324. willits, d. h., li, s., & yunker, c. a. (2006). the cooling performance of naturally ventilated greenhouses in the southeastern u.s. acta horticulturae (ishs), 719, 73-82. 88issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2019, volume 3 issue 1 http://journals.e-palli.com pa ge 1 pa ge 13 5 american journal of agricultural science, engineering, and technology (ajaset) the role of innovations in the activities of tomorka farms in samarkand region shukrullo muratov1* volume 6 issue 3, year 2022 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print) doi: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v6i3.965 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset article information abstract received: november 18, 2022 accepted: november 19, 2022 published: december 03, 2022 in this scientific research, the role and importance of using innovations in the income from tomorka farm activities in rural areas is studied. also, the “the innovation use index” is developed using factor analysis to assess the impact of the use of innovations on the income from tomorka farm activities. the analysis based on the data of 1428 respondents who took part in a social survey conducted in the rural areas of samarkand region. the influence of the innovation index on the income from tomorka farm activities is determined to be statistically significant at 1 percent (p<.01). particularly, it is based that, a 1% increase in the index of the use of innovations to increase the income from tomorka farm activities by 32.9%. based on the results of the analysis, proposals were made to increase income from tomorka farm activities in rural areas and to introduce opportunities for using innovations. keywords tomorka farm, non-farm, innovation use index, factor analysis, vif test 1 tashkent institute of irrigation and agricultural mechanization engineers national research university, uzbekistan * corresponding author’s e-mail: shukrullo.muratov@yahoo.com introduction before the covid-19 pandemic, there was a focus on ending hunger and malnutrition on earth by 2030(banik, 2019). however, the pandemic period had a significant impact on the economic sphere of all countries, including agricultural activities and the food production network. these impacts have led to major changes in storage, processing, delivery, and population consumption which are related with production. as a result, hunger and malnutrition among the population increased from 8.4 percent to 9.9 percent in one year (unicef, 2021). in particular, in 2020 compared to 2019, more than 57 million people suffered from famine in asian countries. populations suffering from hunger or malnutrition, with low or no income from their labor, can have a significant impact. whereas, for the normal growth and development of the population, to live an active and healthy life, it is necessary to provide enough food products(pelletier et al., 2016). however, 45 percent of the world’s population lives in rural areas, and most of them rely on income from agricultural activities. in this regard, diversification of risks in agricultural activities, seasonal income changes and financing of production resources are important for the sustainable development of production efficiency. also(müller and campos, 2021), attracting innovations to the agricultural sector and financial support from the government will have a positive effect on the increase in the quantity and quality of the products obtained from the activity. however, the involvement of innovations in agricultural activities affects the employment of the population in agriculture. in particular, the use of innovations in the labor-intensive work process, which requires a lot of manual labor in agriculture, the implementation of agrotechnical measures, the harvesting of cultivated crops or the use of resources, has an impact on the reduction of labor costs. the influence of such factors leads to the decision of the population to be engaged in non-farm activities from agricultural activities. while(hasanov and sanaev, 2018), the decision to engage in non-farm activities and the income coming from it affects agricultural activities. at the same time, although families grow agricultural products in their household for their own consumption and for the market, in families with a large number of family members, they rely on income from non-farm activities to meet their food and non-food needs (lanjouw p., 2001). however, the growth of non-farm sectors in rural areas also affects agricultural activities. that is, according to the results of a scientific study conducted by e. giannakis and others (giannakis, efstratoglou and antoniades, 2018) in households of the rural area of cyprus, they found out that there is an inverse relationship between the arable land in farmers’ or peasant farms and the probability of participation in non-agricultural activities. also, according to the results of scientific research by s. haggblade and others (haggblade, hazell and reardon, 2010), in rural areas, households with less than 0.5 hectares of income from non-agricultural activities make up to 30-90 percent, and households with little or no arable land rely on sources of income from non-agricultural activities. however, agricultural activity includes the production of agricultural products (crops, livestock) in the course of agricultural activities using production factors (natural resources)(reardon, berdegué and escobar, 2001). however, innovations introduced into agricultural activities (ermakova, 2021) have an impact on the increase in income from activities. the share of tomarka farms in the production of agricultural products in uzbekistan is 70.1%, which plays an important role in the country’s economy. today, the https://doi.org/10.54536/ajaset.v6i3.965 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset mailto:shukrullo.muratov@yahoo.com pa ge 13 6 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 number of homesteads is more than 5 million, 1.5 times more than in 2000. the land area used for agriculture in uzbekistan(agricultural statistics, 2021) is 3686.7 thousand hectares, 13.0% of which is arable land used by homesteads. tomorka farming(law of the republic of uzbekistan. about the farm(tomarka), 2021) is a labor activity related to agricultural production on private homestead land plots for family economic activity, cultivation (processing) for sale on the market. tomorka farming is not considered an entrepreneurial activity; it is not required to be state registered. however, a person may receive the status of a self-employed person in accordance with the legislation on employment. however, 26.9% of the working-age population in uzbekistan is engaged in agricultural activities, and in 2020, compared to 2017, employment decreased by 3.1%. the decrease in the employment of the population in agricultural activities is related to the decrease in the size of agricultural arable land, which has decreased by 3.3% over the last 4 years. although it is observed that the agricultural arable land has decreased, the volume of agricultural products and their value have increased over the years (2017-2020). the increase in the volume of agricultural products is related to the attraction of innovations in the field. in particular, in 2017, 66.7 percent of technological innovations were involved in agricultural activities by agricultural entities, and in 2020, this figure was 90.4 percent. basically, innovations introduced by agricultural subjects are agricultural machinery, technologies related to the implementation of agrotechnical activities, innovative technologies related to crop irrigation. however, the involvement of such innovative technologies in agricultural activities are carried out by farm or agro cluster entities. however, the owners of farm land in uzbekistan are small farm subjects that grow agricultural products. it is important to introduce innovations in agricultural activities, which are the use of innovations by the owners of the agricultural land, such as irrigation of crops, fruitful new varieties of fruits and vegetables and potatoes, and cultivation of plant products from cultivated fields in all seasons. also, the use of livestock with high productivity in livestock farming activities by the landowners can have a positive effect on the increase in the volume of products obtained from the activity. the purpose of the scientific research work is to make an economic assessment of the impact of the innovations used by the estate owners on the income from the estate business and to make scientifically based proposals. the scientific research work was based on survey data obtained from 1428 homestead land owners who operate in rural areas of samarkand region. material and methods the object of study of the scientific research work is homestead farms operating in the rural areas of the samarkand region, the center of the republic of uzbekistan. samarkand region is located in the middle part of the zarafshan river basin and is one of the largest and ancient irrigated regions in central asia. there are 14 districts and 2 large cities in samarkand region. the zarafshan river divides into two rivers around the city of samarkand akdarya and karadarya, and merges again near khatirchi district of navoi region. (figure 1). figure 1: location map of samarkand regional districts pastdargom, payarik, narpai and kattakurgan districts are the largest districts in the region in terms of the size of irrigated cropland. but, in the region, the cultivation of vegetable products on homestead farms is more due to the contribution of jomboy, taylak, urgut and samarkand districts. this valley, located around the zarafshan river, is 20003000 meters above sea level, and in some lowlands it is 980-1400 meters above sea level, and the annual rainfall is 320-360 mm. the climate of the region is sharply continental, the sun shines on about 300 days of the year, summer days are up to 15 hours long. in general, the climate conditions in the territory of the region correspond to the generally accepted soil-climate classification. according to agroclimate, the irrigated area is divided into 2 parts: the larger part of the area corresponds to the region of typical gray soils, and the smaller part corresponds to the region of pale gray soils. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 13 7 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 irrigated gray soils are located in the temperate-hot thermal zone, the annual effective temperature is 21402300 c0, the length of the vegetation period is 208-212 days. a social survey was conducted to study the activities of tomorka farms. the survey was conducted from march 10 to august 24, 2021, and a total of 1428 respondents from 14 districts of samarkand region participated. in this case, a questionnaire was conducted among the landowners located in the district, but not included in the neighborhood of the central city of the district(saydullaeva, 2021). the agricultural products grown on homesteads in the research object, especially the crops obtained from plant growing, are grown for the consumption of family members. however, the needs of family members for agricultural products are met at the expense of vegetable, potato, fruit and grape products grown on homesteads. surplus of consumption of family members is sold for income. however, family members are engaged in agricultural activities, the main income of families is income from agricultural activities. that is, tomorka farm land owners grow commodity products for sale in 1 or 2 types of markets on arable land. nevertheless, a certain part of the goods is used by the family members to meet the needs of the family. in this process, agricultural products used for sale and for family needs were taken to determine the income from tomorka farm activities. in this case, the agricultural products used for family needs in homesteads, which are vegetables, potatoes, fruit and grape products, were expressed at the market price. according to the approach, when agricultural products are not grown on the cultivated area of the tomorka farm, how many soums will be spent for the needs of family members. in total, the incomes from household activities of 1428 respondents were taken in the value index, and their average income is 14,531 thousand soums (table 1). innovations used by tomorka farm land owners, which table 1: descriptive statistics of tomorka farms activities variable obs mean std. dev. min max income 1428 14.531 5.458 3.3 37.5 inn_irrigation 1428 .344 .475 0 1 inn_veg_var 1428 .548 .498 0 1 inn_fruit_var 1428 .506 .5 0 1 inn_greenhouse 1428 .297 .457 0 1 inn_ped_cattle 1428 .2 .4 0 1 age 1428 48.1 6.87 27 60 male 1428 .832 .374 0 1 education 1428 1.926 .685 1 3 non-farm 1428 .543 .498 0 1 cropland 1428 7.323 2.438 3 18 family_members 1428 5.588 1.229 2 11 3_year_members 1428 .272 .445 0 1 log_income 1428 2.598 .413 1.194 3.624 are the use of modern technologies in crop irrigation, high-yielding varieties of vegetables and fruits, and the presence of closed space and productive livestock in tomorka farms, were taken as dummy variables. in particular, 34.4 percent of 1,428 respondents used modern technologies to irrigate agricultural crops grown on tomorka farms. also, 54.8% of the respondents used high-yielding vegetable crops in their homesteads, and 50.6% of respondents have high-yielding fruit trees in their homesteads. however, 29.7 percent of homesteads have a closed area and 20.0 percent have productive livestock. the average arable land in homesteads is 7,323 hectares, which can limit the possibility of raising productive livestock breeds. the age, gender, education and number of family members(pardaev, 2021) of the owners of the estate are important for the change of the income from the tomorka farm activities(muratov, 2021). however, the average age of the respondents is 48.1 years, and they are at working age. similarly, 83.2% of the landowners are men, 27.2% of the family members have children under 3 years of age, and the average number of family members in the household is about 6 people. however, 54.3 percent of homestead land owners living in rural areas are mainly engaged in non-farm activities in scientific research, the standard deviation of different values of the independent variable or the variation of the relationship between them causes the problem of heteroskedasticity and multicollinearity(daoud, 2018). in order to partially eliminate the problem of heteroskedasticity, we introduce a new variable, innovations used by landowners, which use dummy indicators. this new variable represents the index of the use of innovations in household activities of 1428 respondents. factor analysis(rummel, 1988) was used to create the index of the use of these innovations. first, the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo=0.568) test(kaiser, 1974) was conducted to determine the suitability of factor analysis for the variables used in agricultural activities, which represent innovations. in this case, the statistic is a measure of the ratio of variance between variables that may be the total variance. also, according to the results of bartlett’s test(bartlett, 1937), h0: the fact https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 13 8 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 that the variables are not related to each other is explained by the condition that p value is less than 10%, 5%, and 1%. according to the result of barlett’s test, the variables representing the use of innovations in agricultural activities are not related (p=0.0000). determinant of the correlation matrix(bartlett, 1951) is explained by multicollinearity between variables greater than 0.0000001. however, the multicollinearity between the variables representing the innovations used in tomorka farm activities explains 0.890. according to the results of the 3 tests conducted, using factor analysis, it is possible to express the innovation use index by means of the variables that represent the use of innovation. factor 1 explains 27.5% of the innovations used in homesteads as a variable (table 2). table 2: value of interpretation of variables in factors factor analysis/correlation number of obs = 1,428 method: principal-component factor retained factors = 2 rotation: (unrotated) number of params = 9 factor eigenvalue difference proportion cumulative factor1 1.37979 0.24770 0.2760 0.2760 factor2 1.13209 0.27211 0.2264 0.5024 factor3 0.85998 0.04324 0.1720 0.6744 factor4 0.81674 0.00535 0.1633 0.8377 factor5 0.81139 0.1623 1.0000 lr test: independent vs. saturated: chi2(10) = 165.75 prob>chi2 = 0.0000 however, in 5 factors, their eigenvalue is greater than 1(larsen and warne, 2010), factor1 and factor2 explain the variables expressed in the use of innovations by the landowners. in particular, factor2 explains 22.6 percent of 5 independent variables. existing innovations in the activities of homesteads (figure 2), which means that fruit trees were planted in homesteads 1 year ago or many years ago, and are present in homesteads for years. on the other hand, the price of fruit seedlings set in the markets or by the growers of fruitful fruit seedlings shows that the farm is suitable for the consumption of the landowners. the variables representing innovation were explained by factor1 and factor2 and indexed by bartlett’s method(bartlett, 1937) (table 3). figure 2: loadings of variables representing innovations in farm activities figure 3. graphic representation of the relationship between income from tomorka farm activities and the index of use of innovations index is 350, and the standard deviation is 244. in the object of scientific research, it is expressed that there is a relationship between the income from tomorka farm activity and the index of use of innovations (figure 3). table 3: descriptive statistics of inn_index variable obs mean std. dev. min max inn_ index 1,428 .3504802 .2449325 -5.40e-17 1 in this case, according to the statistical description of the index of use of innovations, 1428 estate owners, which represented the innovations used in estates, were indexed between 0 and 1. the average value of the innovation use in this case, the relationship between the dependent variable, the income from household activities, and the independent variable, the innovation use index, is positive. innovations introduced into real estate activities, which are variables representing the index of innovation use, have a positive effect on the increase in income from real estate activities. table 4: variance inflation factor variable vif 1/vif income_tf 1.34 .746 education 1.312 .762 age 1.17 .855 3_year_members 1.112 .899 male 1.086 .92 cropland 1.075 .93 inn_index 1.048 .954 family_members 1.016 .984 mean vif 1.145 . https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 13 9 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 the presence of variable correlation in the variables indicates multicollinearity, that is, the independent variables are statistically insignificant. when determining such a situation, a diagnostic test was conducted to ensure the robustness of our results (table 4). vif (variance inflation factor) test was conducted for independent variables to determine multicollinearity. the vif test(wichers, 1975) is a measure of the amount of multicollinearity in a set of multiple regressor variables. mathematically, the vif for a variable in a regression model is the ratio of the total model variance to the variance of the model containing only one independent variable. this ratio is calculated for each independent variable. a high vif indicates that the dependent independent variable is correlated with other variables in the model. however, according to the vif test result, its mean value is 1.145, indicating that there is no multicollinearity between the variables. the results were obtained in the stata-16 program package using the multivariate linear regression model in the economic evaluation of the influence of independent variables on the income from household activities. the “robust” command was used in the stata-16 program package in order to strengthen the variables and eliminate multicollinearity when obtaining the results. here, the marginal effect of the index of use of innovations on the income from household activities was determined. results according to the results of the analysis (table 5), independent variables explain 50.7 percent of the changes in the dependent variable (r-squared=0.507). the functional equation is statistically significant (prob > f 0.000) and at least 1 of the independent variables affects the dependent variable. however, the change of the income from tomorka farm activities is influenced by the use of innovation index, tomorka farm area, employment of the owner of the tomorka farm land in non-farm activities, education, gender, age, number of family members and family members under 3 years of age 1 percent (p<.01) is statistically significant. in this case, the influence of independent variables on the dependent variable is statistically significant. however, the presence of children under the age of 3 in the family members has a negative effect on the increase in income from household activities. that is, the presence of 3-year-old children in the family has a statistical significance of 1 percent (p<.01) on the income from household activities, and it reduces the income from household activities by 7.9 percent. in this case, it is possible to limit the labor costs of family members in the homestead or the expenses spent on the homestead. however, the busyness of working-age family members with raising children up to the age of 3 limits the labor consumption in the cultivation of agricultural products in homesteads. however, sending children older than 3 years to kindergarten, which can have a positive effect on the increase in income from household activities. an increase in cultivated area by 1 hectare in tomorka farms increases the income from the activity by 8.3 percent. however, there is no possibility to increase the cultivated area due to the limited amount of cultivated land in the regions. however, in order to reduce poverty in the rural areas, to increase the employment of the population and their well-being, the government is allocating 15 hectares of arable land for long-term use, but not exceeding 10 years. use of resources, in which the limitation of land resources forces the intensive use of arable land. however, the intensive use of open spaces is related to the innovative technologies involved in the activity. in particular, a 1% increase in the index of the use of innovations by the landowners increases the income from the estate by 32.9%. however, the use of innovations by homestead land owners depends on the level of education and income of family members. in particular, an increase in the level of education of tomorka farm land owners by 1 unit increases the income from tomorka farm activities table 5: economic assessment of the impact of variables on the income from farm activities log_income coef. st.err. t-value p-value [95% conf interval] sig inn_index .329 .032 10.23 0 .266 .392 *** cropland .083 .003 23.95 0 .076 .09 *** non-farm .168 .018 9.20 0 .132 .203 *** education .221 .012 18.03 0 .197 .245 *** male .083 .022 3.71 0 .039 .127 *** age .004 .001 3.22 .001 .002 .006 *** family_ members .025 .006 4.07 0 .013 .037 *** 3_year_ members -.079 .019 -4.17 0 -.116 -.042 *** constant .984 .078 12.67 0 .831 1.136 *** mean dependent var 2.598 sd dependent var 0.413 r-squared 0.507 number of obs 1428 f-test 168.270 prob > f 0.000 akaike crit. (aic) 532.252 bayesian crit. (bic) 579.628 *** p<.01, ** p<.05, * p<.1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 14 0 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 by 22.1 percent. in this case, it is required to increase the literacy of the landowners in the field of agriculture and livestock. in homesteads, the employment of the head of the family in non-farm activities increases the income from homestead activities by 16.8%. however, the head of the family’s employment in non-farm activities depends on the number of family members. in particular, the limitation of labor costs in farm activities, which the heads of families focus on the income from non-farm activities. however, an increase in the number of family members by 1 person increases the income from tomorka farm activities by 2.5%. innovations used in farm activities or the innovation index have a positive effect on the increase in income from tomorka farms (figure 4). however, we cannot say that homestead landowners have effectively used innovations such as crop irrigation, high-yielding vegetable and fruit varieties, greenhouses, and productive livestock. based on the results of the analysis, the innovation use index has a significant impact on the increase in income from household activities. in particular, the relative marginal effect of the index of use of innovations on the income from household activities confirms this. figure 4: the relative marginal effect of the index of use of innovations on the income received from household activities conclusion in the economy of uzbekistan, agriculture is important in supplying industry with raw materials, meeting the population’s demand for food products, and providing employment for rural residents. in particular, the agricultural products grown in the homestead economy, which, in addition to meeting the demand for food products of the family, are their source of income. in the economic analysis of the impact of innovation on the income from tomorka farm activities, the data of the rural areas in samarkand region was analyzed. 1428 respondents or landowners took part in the social survey. the results of the analysis showed that there is an opportunity to increase the income from tomorka farm activities in the rural areas of samarkand region. the size of tomorka farm land is important in increasing the income of the residents of rural areas from tomorka farm activities. however, the limited amount of arable land in tomorka farms, the use of innovations in activities is important. in this case, the homestead requires the use of new technologies by the landowners, which include crop irrigation, high-yielding vegetable and fruit varieties, greenhouses, productive livestock and other innovations. however, the effect of the use of innovation index on the income from farm activities is statistically significant at 1 percent (p<.01), and an increase in the use of innovation index by 1 percent increases the income from the activity by 32.9 percent. also, the increase of the income from tomorka farm activities is statistically significant in 1 percent (p<.01) of tomorka farm area, occupation of the tomorka farm land owner in non-agricultural activities, education, gender, age, and number of family members. although the presence of members under 3 years of age in the family household is statistically significant at 1 percent (p<.01), it has a negative effect on the increase in income from household activities. nowadays, the reforms carried out by the government, which reduce poverty in rural areas and provide longterm arable land to the population, are important for improving the welfare of the population. however, it is necessary to develop a system to support or encourage the use of innovations in homestead tomorka farms and arable land allocated to them for a long time. references agricultural statistics (2021). retrieved from https://stat. uz/uz/default/press-relizlar/7658-2021-yil. banik, d. (2019). achieving food security in a sustainable development era’, food ethics, 4(2), 117–121. bartlett, m. s. (1937). the statistical conception of mental factors, british journal of psychology, 28(1), 97. bartlett, m. s. (1951). the effect of standardization on a $χ$ 2 approximation in factor analysis, biometrika, 38(3/4), 337–344. daoud, j. i. (2018). multicollinearity and regression analysis, journal of physics: conference series, 949(1). ermakova, a. m. (2021), features of introduction of innovative means in production activity of the agricultural enterprise, iop conference series: earth and environmental science, 723(3). giannakis, e., efstratoglou, s. and antoniades, a. (2018). off-farm employment and economic crisis: evidence from cyprus, agriculture (switzerland), 8(3), 1–11. haggblade, s., hazell, p. and reardon, t. (2010). the rural non-farm economy: prospects for growth and poverty reduction, world development, 38(10), 1429–1441. hasanov, s. and sanaev, g. (2018). non-farm employment trends and policy in rural areas of samarkand region (uzbekistan), 176. retrieved from www.iamo.de/en. kaiser, h. f. (1974). an index of factorial simplicity, psychometrika, 39(1), 31–36. lanjouw p., f. g. (2001). rural strategy background rural non-farm activities and rural development https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset pa ge 14 1 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset am. j. agric. sci. eng. technol. 6(3) 135-141, 2022 from experience towards strategy, strategy, 1–68. retrieved from https://documents1.worldbank.org/ curated/en/903001468740446659/pdf/multi0page. pdf. larsen, r. and warne, r. t. (2010). estimating confidence intervals for eigenvalues in exploratory factor analysis, behavior research methods, 42(3), 871–876. law of the republic of uzbekistan. about the farm(tomarka) (2021). retrieved from https://lex.uz/pdfs/5351489. müller, m. l. and campos, h. (2021). open innovation and value creation in crop genetics, the innovation revolution in agriculture. muratov, s. a. (2021). the economic assessment of factors affecting small household (tomorka) in rural areas and their income, irrigation and melioration, 2021(3), 45–51. pardaev, k. (2021).smallholderspreferences for contract design attributes, a case of samarkand province, economics of education, (5), 59–66. pelletier, b. et al. (2016). linking rural livelihood resilience and food security: an international challenge, food security, 8(3), 469–476. reardon, t., berdegué, j. and escobar, g. (2001). rural nonfarm employment and incomes in latin america: overview and policy implications, world development, 29(3), 395–409. rummel, r. j. (1988). applied factor analysis. northwestern university press. saydullaeva, f. j. (2021). main directions of food security in uzbekistan (the case of samarkand province), irrigation and melioration, 2021(3), 39–44. unicef (2021). the state of food security and nutrition in the world 2021. wichers, c. r. (1975). the detection of multicollinearity: a comment. the review of economics and statistics, 57(3), 366. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajaset microsoft word 86-full article with author-250-1-4-20210916-edited american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology (ajaset) is blind peer reviewed international journal publishing articles that emphasize research, development and application within the fields of agricultural science, engineering and technology. the ajaset covers all areas of agricultural science, engineering and technology, publishing original research articles. the ajaset reviews article within approximately two weeks of submission and publishes accepted articles online immediately upon receiving the final versions. published media: issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print). frequency: 2 issues per year (january, july) area of publication: agricultural science, any engineering and technology related original and innovative works. editorial board chief editor dr mamun-or-rashid professor, dhaka university, bangladesh board members dr. sumit garg, il, usa professor dr. james j. riley, the university of arizona, usa dr. ekkehard kürschner, agriculture development consultant, germany professor dr. rodriguez hilda, usa professor dr. michael d. whitt, usa professor dr. wael al-aghbari, yemen professor dr. muhammad farhad howladar, bangladesh dr. clement kiprotich kiptum, university of eldoret, kenya professor dr m shamim kaiser, professor, jahangirnagar university, bangladesh professor dr mohammad shahadat hossain, chittagong university, bangladesh professor dr. nirmal chandra roy, sylhet agricultural university, bangladesh managing editor md. roshidul hasan professor, department of computer science and information technology, bangabandhu sheikh mujibur rahman agricultural university, bangladesh american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 148 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org urbanization and the lost of river activity on malay human settlement julaihi wahid1 & azli abdullah2* doi: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5537202 abstract malaysia, as any other country, is constantly evolving in all facets of life, including architecture, economy, and culture. despite that, the malay settlement on the river's fringe remains an early settlement due to the malays' strong connections to agriculture and socio-culture. the malay's brilliance in establishing settlements on the river's fringe is among the leading reasons for this community's glorious history in the maritime world. however, today's shift in river activity has eroded the strong bond in malay settlement. therefore, affecting the malay settlements, which have a significant impact on their economic growth. the research methodology employs previous researchers' exploratory techniques focusing on the effects of urbanization, as well as socioeconomic data from 350 local respondents collected during the field survey in april 2019, and observation analysis information commonly used by architects to evaluate the context of the discussion. these include physical, social, cultural, and public amenities, and the data gathered then was amalgamated using ibm spss v26, supplemented by interview techniques and pictorial documentation. mapping techniques are being used to generate existing settlements patterns by utilizing the google earth software. finally, autocad 2018 software is used to demonstrate the current settlement pattern in the case study situation. according to the results of the study, the pace of urbanization is speeding up and creeping into the malay settlements. the destruction of river activities encouraged in order to change malay settlement patterns and force them to follow or reject the current trend of urbanization. keywords: river activity, human settlement, kota bharu 1 department of architecture, faculty of built environment, unimas, sarawak, malaysia 2 department of architecture, faculty of architecture and ekistics, umk, bachok, kelantan, malaysia, *corresponding autor: azli.ab@umk.edu.my american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 149 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org introduction it is important to study the total range of human settlements from the most rudimentary to the most sophisticated in order to understand the villages, towns and cities that we live in. our subject, the entire gamut of human settlements, is a highly complex system made up of five elements: nature, man, society, shells (that is, buildings), and networks. it is a complex system of natural, social, and man-made components that can be observed in various ways, including economic, social, political, technological, and cultural. as a consequence, we can grasp the widest possible viewpoint. in this article, the researcher attempts to demonstrate the necessity for, and the significance of, a vast expanse of knowledge that man is seeking to recapture and develop systematically through a few situations. even if it is often viewed as technology and art, this discipline is a science without the scientific foundations a mistake for which we have paid a high price. since there is lacking presenting the entire case in a short article, several points were selected to demonstrate the truth of the initial statements and the practical relevance of the effort to investigate the influence of the loss of river activity on malay humans settlements. a short synopsis of human settlement human life is essential and not dependent in the broadest sense on human settlement. settlements have existed following the advancement of social progression for as long as humans live. traditionally, human settlements are considered exclusively concerned with physical characteristics. generally, human settlement is the science of the surface of the earth. according to doxiadis (1974) and wu (2001), it is more than only static objects and physically built-up areas, which is a process and a system that has evolved from various perspectives such as geography, topography, growing populations, technological transition, changing conditions in the natural environment, and successive social, political, and cultural attributes. it includes all elements of human life on earth the natural environment, as well as social, political, and cultural phenomena, influence on they exist. human settlement is a subject of dynamic, metamorphic entities that cannot be grasped infractions. a wide range of subjects and methodologies involving geography, urban planning, and related disciplines is required in conducting human settlement research (ma et al, 2016). humans do not survive alone but are connected to other living things by ideas, feelings, or environmental elements (seamon, 2018). it is necessary to evaluate its overall structure because it involves the link between the previously explained aspects. doxiadis and co-founded (together with jaqueline tyrwhitt) an ekistic theory on human settlement. his hypothesis explored human settlement challenges by employing dynamic and evolutionary processes (bromley, 2003). american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 150 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org according to fookes (2000), doxiadis (1962&1972), mitarachi (1973), alexander (1987), gottman (1976), and farizkha et al (2019), ekistics has amassed a multi-disciplinary body of knowledge from various disciplines such as science, methodology, or philosophy. however, ekistics is a science that naturally develops human understanding to maintain the expansion of human existence generally. this is due to the necessity for humans to deal with the future crisis is faced by modern civilization. heywood (1969), middleton (2009), and silva (2019) described ekistics as a discipline that focuses on metamorphic processes and requires an analytical set of scales based on dynamic morphology. this demands investigation on the evolutionary nature of settlements and the natural stages of their expansion. the principle of human settlement according to mumford (1946), the evolution of the city starts with the development of the family. he further said that the village, which became the centre of human civilization, spread into the city. then, it evolved into a town, a city, a metropolis, and a megapolis. in reality, no comprehensive overview of human settlement, beginning with the existence of village, town, and city until the entire fabricated system in life is investigated. this manmade system was tightly linked to each human settlement depending on the location of the area. the history of human settlements represented human existence from the beginning of the early age to modern development. human settlement is a complicated issue, and the elements are divided into five categories doxiadis (1974): 1. nature: the whole environment as the foundation for the formation of the settlement and the functionality of the surrounding context 2. man / anthropos: the inhabitant, as an individual 3. society: the interaction system between people 4. shell/ buildings: the structures that shelter, people, their function and activities. 5. networks (road and telecommunications): roads, water supply, sewerage system, electricity supply, facilities, communication facilities, economic policies, educational, legal, and political systems are examples of natural man-made systems that are used for settlement. the above-mentioned aspects evolved in response to the economic, social, political, technological, and cultural factors. the history of human settlement need to examine for understanding since the future is unpredictable and the current situation is too restricted to analyze (sirakov, et.al 2010; smith, 2014 & doxiadis, 1974). the origins, ideas, and principles that humankind has been developing and evolving over the past two million years should be learned from human experience. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 151 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org do we have a comprehensive understanding of the history of human settlement? doxiadis (1968, 1974, and 2005) had described their 40-year investigation of human settlement. the chronology and location of early human settlements shifted dramatically over time. each new archaeological findings changed the history of all past human settlement discoveries. this complicates the history of human settlement (papaioannou, 2005). the existence of human settlement we have no idea how long it will take to build a settlement. the type of settlement can be guessed from the structure's remnants. individual shelters are the smallest, with mid-size for small families and large volumes for prominent families. these settlements were established in various ways through trial and error regardless of the limited experience and information gained from past mistakes. christaller (1966) and (brian & chauncy, 1970), a bavarian geographer and researcher, described this as the connection of acts, events, circumstances, and experiences triggered by persons or groups that comprise the building. whether it is for living, working, pleasure, conducting business, or any other reason. in this circumstance, however, the building will support the lifeworld it shelters in connection to other lifeworlds and spatially intertwined with the environment (seamon, 2018). the river's importance the river is the fundamental source of human life as people have access to water sources to sustain their lives (leakey & lewin, 1979; kuentzel & mcdonald, 1992; wohl et.al., 2015; alam, 2021). humans either stay nomadic or permanently in one place (mumford, 1961). therefore, the river not only serves as a source of water for a human settlement, but it is also the supply of food, transport, communication and cultural formation. the river is also the ground for a better experience in comparison with other locations (mumford, 1961; choomgrant & sukharomana, 2017). ibrahim et al (2018) said the majority of the existing settlements are located on the river banks. most people in the area have significant socioeconomic activities in farming and fisheries (adji syahputra, 2018; ismail& hasan, 2018). furthermore, the traditional design of a house adapts to the wet soil, tropics and flood crises, alongside settlements in the arid landscapes. therefore, the human settlement in many asian countries started to establish along rivers. the mekong river serves as the link between the various groups in places where tough areas form waterways (mossop, 2018; vadillo & kallio, 2020). in the past, it has been considered easier than roadways. the variety of various ethnologies in language through the same linguistic family, similar lifestyles, established their settlement easily according to hudson & shaw (2003). this phenomenon occurred due to different beliefs and cultures in the river. water is one of the four elements american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 152 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org of ancient cosmography, is considered fundamental to physical and organic life. according to thaitakoo & mcgrath (2008), the chao phraya river is also an important river system in indochina since its basin defined the provinces of central and northern thailand. the upper basin has rice fields and forests, while the lower chao phraya river delta spreads across the urban agricultural market dominated by the orchards to the west, rice fields to the east, coastal shrimp farms, and lowlands fish farms. the geographical structure of the chao phraya river basin influenced the architectural design and settlement as the natural environment determines the design. in thai environment and culture, the "good old days" of siam (wichiencharoen, 1993), which portrays thai cultural patterns resembling nature, is remembered. coastal communities are important in understanding the significance and impact of tradition in the daily lives of amphibious cultures. the community has been established to prevent and respond to annual high tide floods since predominantly populated along the river (loucks , 2019; panin, 1999). the traffic rafts and boathouses in the commercial zone were utilized as shophouses for convenient transportation and trading along the river. this practice has persisted since the era of rattanakosin. unfortunately, this thai cultural utopia panorama has since vanished. the traditional patterns of the villages in malaysia are classified into three groups, namely rural village, water village and a mix of the settlements, according to hassan and ku hassan (2001). the geography of the riverside banks forms the basis for the land villages and the water villages. the land village is the village that first lines the bank of the river goes to the land, while the water village that began on the river develops gradually in front of the water. the local community's socioeconomic activities are fishing (shari, 1992). the settlement pattern was shaped by the topography factors of the river basins and the development of malay craftsmen. people build dwellings on a high-quality jetty or shelters to keep their houses by building a stable jetty throughout time. this village was called the water village (zanuri et.al, 2020). there is also a bridge linking every dwelling in the village. the integrated pattern of the village is a mixture of two morphological forms that are hard to identify since the habitat exceeds the water and the surrounding area. the past experience: the river of life there has been much discourse on the role and contribution in human life of rivers. his importance in the development and participation (pula, 2019; isa & samsudin, 2020) and social life had been established for centuries. there are extremely dominating links between the location of the city and the river. the river and sea served as the main transport route before the arrival of the colonial. elephants may also be used for transport (mohd faiz, american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 153 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org 2019). however, elephants are of very little interest, unlike in thailand (andaya & andaya, 1992). human settlements such as villages were developed along the river banks and the seaside (ibrahim, 2018). the river offers a wide range of advantages for natural transportation as the people use water as their domestic business. through this, the community can benefit financially (kuentzel & mcdonald, 1992; lamb, 2018). rivers serve as important method of transportation, source of water and source of livelihood represented by the culture of life. the river is the people's choice to move inland to the island's egress (mentayani, 2019). he referred to the villages along the banks of the river as a "station", where one village is connected to another. as in the kelantan river, the lush delta was formed, and many agricultural activities were carried out. kota bharu city has fertile soil, is in good geographical condition due to the lush delta; the area has attracted the attention of locals, accommodating a large population, sustaining a dense population, and promoting urban growth. now, with the pace of urbanization, the river is the only unnoticed natural heritage. many rivers that flow through urban areas are polluted, eroded, and sedimented to the point of no longer be used for domestic purposes. this occurrence happened due to the formation of settlement concentration with a settlement pattern along the river banks, as mentioned by saleh (1986). the river is important by providing for life, transport and mobility, economic, social, cultural and political interests and are beneficial for residents living on the riverbank. the river culture originated from the population concentration and its connection with the river. according to wahid (1996), the houses stand on poles, all facing the river, using wooden sticks on each structure (bridges). however, currently, the city's rivers have now transformed for garbage and hazardous waste disposal. consequently, this leads to the loss of a valuable natural endowment (mohamad et al, 2005) the malays opportunities on the waterways the malays are very skillful in making boats, allowing them to be ancient seafarers. the malays could be in the advantage of using this skill as they could cruise globally and trade with countries abroad (evers & hornidge, 2007; evers, 2017; evers, 2013). they originally started operations in the coastal areas before expanding to a global enterprise. they also cooperate in west and east china with traders from india (fahimudin , 2020). malay traders also believed that since the early centuries ad, they came to southern china and funan. this business was responsible for transforming this community from river fringe settlers to international traders. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 154 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the demise of the river activity and malay culture early settlements in malaysia were discovered near rivers and coastal lines like other settlements worldwide. these settlements were not confined to the topography and location of the river during the british colonial age. today, there are many colonial cities in malaysia, of which the majority have no connection or contact with the river. rather, the city was designed based on its economic importance, including maritime trade, natural resources, import and export activities (mohamad, toriman, aiyub & jaafar, 2005). roads and railways were established in the british economic centres under the colonial administration of 1920 mainly to exploit our natural resources. the major cities serve as hubs for agricultural resources with the roads connecting them. as a result, the development of towns in the area has been encouraged (kiroh & de silve, 2018). finally, the river is no longer an important element in determining the location of cities. the phenomenon also arises in the postindependence era. private developers established new urbanization programs during the nep that consider the river at the back of the houses. almost all of the new towns are located far from the river. due to the industrial revolution, the river was no longer the major transportation system. the city thrived and developed as a mining centre, collecting and distribution centre for rubber products. later, george town, kuching, kota kinabalu, taiping, ipoh, seremban and kuantan, and the largest town of all kuala lumpur, became the capital city. after independence, all these major towns were connected to roads, and the towns expanded swiftly for economic and development purposes (idrus et al, 2011). as a consequence, the river's role as a communication waterway is diminishing. the community's river connections are a future loss (hartanto & ruly, 2020; wicaksono, 2018). after independence, the new metropolis included a new business centre and modern housing (awang besar et.al, 2012). according to sendut (1962), the discovery of economic minerals, especially tin, was a major development in the late nineteenth century. as a result of this prosperity, traders established numerous mining centres, including taiping, ipoh, kuala lumpur, and seremban (sendut, 1962). it was planned following a modern plan that was only marginally compatible with the chinese. colonial city was established at the time to promote chinese migrants' urbanization processes. the invaders are apprehensive about the malays' potential to survive in the city. according to ever (2016), most urban spaces in malaysia were constructed by colonists to sustain urban areas considered appropriate exclusively for chinese citizens. the character of chinese 'closed space' differs significantly from that of malay centrifugal space. the formation of the colonial city resulted through urbanization, was not based on their geographical, social, or religious characteristics. these american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 155 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org cities have the same character as colonial cities but differ slightly in their administration. the new settlement is unaffected by the river operations. however, some cities developed and remained near the river during the colonial era. the chinese have adapted to the urban system because they've always treasured the entire city image and city life in their mental map (ever, 2016). they can describe the city's morphology, emphasizing clear structures, borders, routes, and activities. the existing malay settlements' development has shifted dramatically since then. urbanization had significantly impacted on malay settlements, even most residents are descendants of the original inhabitants,. kuala lumpur has evolved into a political, cultural, economic, industrial, and tourism centre resulted from mining operations. it is strategically located at the confluence of the klang and gombak rivers. furthermore, the klang and damansara river segments run through petaling jaya, a planned new colonial metropolis before independence (mohamad et al, 2005). research methodology the malay human settlement is strongly related to river activities. this paper employed a mixed-method commonly disbursed in social research technique with a combination of a case study and longitudinal analysis of the progress of urbanization in malaysia and the development of literature from the human settlement theory and urbanization process in malaysia. a case study of a malay settlement at kota bharu helps to clarify the scenario of sequential detail of the finding due to the pace of urbanization to derive the suggestion and discussions. this area was selected as it is the oldest settlement in kota bharu and is rich in cultural and historical values. this area is the origins of metal works and wood crafts trades practice by the people that became the trademark of kelantan. the primary data was obtained from the questionnaire conducted during the fieldwork in 2019 using a random sampling technique to distribute the questionnaire to the case study area. the direct and participant observation technique, visual analysis, and interviews were used to help to understand the surroundings and the cultural aspect of the locals, which were greatly influenced by the daily activities of the settlers. a total of 350 questionnaires were distributed by the researcher in the area through various endeavors: that is through face-to-face interview, groups meeting and research assistance from the villagers, which easily compromise access in the area. although there are 89 questions in the form, only the variables related to the topic of this paper are extracted and discussed in the context of the related area. with the help of the google map, drone dji mavic mini 1, autocad 2018 and longitudinal history of the area, american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 156 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the researcher enabled to visualize the change of the settlement and cross-examined with the theory and interview from the respondents. the malay settlement in kota bharu, kelantan the existence of several settlement units became one of the important facets of jalan atas paloh village (figure 1 and figure 2). the name of the village is derived from the influence of a specific person or activity carried out here that portrayed the greatness of the malay community. figure 1: malay settlement pattern in the research area (source: abdullah, 2021) it has been customary for people to name their village after a particular figure. even though they have a few settlements, they inform every activity or the presence of a person in their neighborhood to the village. menuang village is one of the last remaining settlements. traditionally, the majority of the residents in these settlements engaged in the copper industry, which produces pottery and other copper-based products, also includes the manufacturing of gold coins known as 'ufti' for trade with the siamese kingdom. figure 2: the image of the study area (source: abdullah, 2021) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 157 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org the same situation happens at haji harun village, situated adjacent to tok semian road. tok aki haji harun, a religious figure in the neighborhood, is responsible for the existence of this settlement. as a consequence, his name has been perpetuated as a village name to honour his leadership,. haji harun village has long had kinship and strong brotherhood. the rest of the people that live here are connected to each other by blood. tok aki haji harun, the institution's founder, has invited his relatives to dwell near his family. it is believed that there were only three settlements at the beginning of this village. they even built small bridges, or 'titi,' in the kitchen area to link one settlement to another because of their close bond. the council school (sekolah majlis), now known as the muzium majlis dan adat istiadat agama islam kelantan, and the traditional religious institution in kubang pasu village, are among the religious institutions and schools at jalan pos office lama (refer to figure 1.0) that badly affected by urbanization. according to doxiadis (1974), his global study shows that, while each town's physical land is diverse, the patterns of these towns will be the same as they spread and develop over the whole world. it's because of the relatively small size of the village. nevertheless, due to their robust economies centered on cattle breeding and hunting, other areas, such as the river and the hills, would be more vulnerable to geographical stratification. according to mcgee (1975), a community and a state are formed for three reasons. first, there has been a rise in population in the past and a shift from rural to urban settlements. the second reason is the increase in birth rates in comparison to death. the natural progression is unavoidable. the third reason is that the migration of people from rural to urban regions. they are important urban and economic drivers. the malay settlement's transportation system transportation is necessary to shift from one place to another. boats were previously the main transportation since the kelantan river is rich in various socioeconomic activities. however, during the industrial revolution, the malay increased their usage of boats gradually. this finding is corroborated by table 1, demonstrating that 208 respondents (59.4 per cent) use cars to get around the city. currently, a car is a necessary vehicle for a settlement owner. at the same time, 11 respondents (n = 3.1%) took a cab to the city. american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 158 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 1: transportation to the city (n = 350) item frequency percent boat/ perahu 5 1.4 car 208 59.4 taxi 11 3.1 motorcycle 113 32.3 bicycles 13 3.7 total 350 100.0 (source: abdullah, 2021) this scenario showed that the people in the study area heavily rely on automobiles. fast and safe from the climate become the primary reasons. furthermore, this vehicle can carry a large number of passengers at once. according to observations, the majority of malay residents owned an automobile. cars are now considered a necessity for a house owner. it is no longer the same as it was before. at the same time, their socioeconomic situation remained unchanged. '...we drove to town because it was faster and easier.' there are many more vehicles on the road... (r-1). the city only provides them job opportunities. meanwhile, the city's infrastructure is still in a poor state. observations revealed that the roadways and parking lots in this area were likewise in bad condition. the majority of vehicles are parked on the side of the road, which affects others. this situation also showed that urban planning is now exclusively focused on transportation, human lifestyle, and industrial development. however, this does not apply to urban infrastructure. although these settlements are in the city, they are not affected by the city's development since progress develops exclusively in the urban economic sector. as a result, their level of living remained constant. their lives will be stressful and eventually impoverished in urban areas. '...with my current income, it is hard for me to live in the city. my salary is not particularly high. while the cost of living is always increasing... (r-2) this result is consistent with the findings of wahid (2014), according to which metropolitan areas are regarded as a source of life for those with economic and educational capital. other low-income groups are not affected in the same way. this group will be forced to remain involved in the urbanization process because the city is also the centre of urban poverty. informal human settlement, such as formal squatting, generates spontaneous disturbance in the economy, environment, and human health. these phenomena have become commonplace in the developing world's urban living environment. as a reason, the image of a malay american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 159 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org settlement gradually associated with a squatter settlement in the metropolis. the industrial revolution impacted transportation technologies such as railways, automobiles, and aeroplanes (mohajan, 2019). these changes significantly affected human settlement, which resulted in the region's expansion, especially in the history of human settlement and population expansion (doxiadis, 1974). furthermore, some of these developments affected the malays' water transport network obsolete. the loss of the transportation system impacted malay expertise in manufacturing boats, economic opportunity, and, more importantly, the pattern and character of malay settlements in the malay settlements ecosystem. the river serves as the source of water and food and a mode of transportation, communication, and cultural formation for the malay settlement (figure 3). life on the river is also the foundation for a better experience compared to other areas, according to (mumford, 1961),. as a result, these changes decreased the chances of improving the lives of malay people in the city, and no effort has been made to restore the function of the river as a source for malay growth in the city. figure 3: kelantan river in 1907 (i) and the ceremonial boat in kelantan (ii) (source: abdullah, 2021) the change of transportation previously, the researcher emphasized the impact and contribution of rivers in the human experience. traditional societies used it as a mode of water transportation. the relationship between the city and the river became one of the contributing factors to the emergence of malay settlements. in contrast to cities, human settlements such as villages were established along rivers and coastlines due to the arrival of the colonials (ibrahim, 2018). a river is also american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 160 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org a natural mode of transportation that offers a variety of attractions. apart from exploiting kelantan's wealth, the colonials also built roadways after their arrival. roads and automobiles are utilized to expedite the construction of new buildings, regardless of the socioeconomic impact of the malays. nowadays, the great majority of malays have cars in their dwellings. table 2: vehicles that people own in study area (n = 350) item frequency per cent bicycle 36 10.3 motorcycle 98 28.0 car 211 60.3 others 5 1.4 total 350 100.0 (source: abdullah, 2021) according to the results in table 2, n = 211 (60.3 per cent) respondents owned a car. however, this does not imply that they are at ease in the settlement. these data also revealed that certain respondents still ride their bicycles regularly. a total of n = 36 (10.3 per cent) rely only on bicycles for mobility. according to observations, this group could not afford a car and would take a taxi for transportation. according to one respondent (r-33), he solely utilizes bicycles and motorbikes to travel around the city. he will take a taxi with his family for further travelling. this situation indicated that the impact of urbanization leads a group of the minority to fall further behind. even though the city is known for providing opportunities, some people are nonetheless left behind. however, this group attempts to adapt due to their strong desire to live in the city. this result is corroborated by mcgee's (1975) view that most migrants who migrate from rural to urban areas have an aspiration to adapt to urban life. these people continue to develop opportunities and a way of life depending on their circumstances while being behind technologically. on the other hand, the motivational push factor is a component for migrants. it is not the same as the situation of the residents, the vast majority of whom are locals. residents here are no longer depending on motivational forces to get through a day due to the psychosocial stressors and the capacity to move on with the other's life. they were described to have few opportunities to migrate to other areas since this is a city settlement. it has a strong influence on the malay settlement. observations have previously shown that the emergence of settlement concentrations with settlement patterns originated along riverbanks. this is due to the significant geography and rivers effects. this finding is american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 161 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org corroborated by saleh (1986), who believed that the river is significant to those who dwell on its banks to satisfy their needs and sustain their lives. also, for their economic, social, cultural, and political and mobility. finally, the settlement no longer has a linkage between nature and humans due to changes in the transportation system (figure 4). figure 4: the loss of river activity in sungai budor, kota bharu kelantan. (source: abdullah, 2021) transportation's impact on malay settlement automobiles are now considered a necessity. previously, the malay would use the boat as a mode of transportation. however, they no longer use it. the rapid pace of innovation has changed the community's lifestyle and put additional pressure on it. traditionally, parking is not provided in the malay settlements as they use boats that occupy no room in the settlement area. they anchored their boats in a nearby river. they are now confronted with challenges as a consequence of their dense population. due to the congested environment, this settlement is unable to provide sufficient parking space. due to the increasing number of cars, the area eventually became congested. therefore, two effects were discovered in the settlement. the first is that the high-income group has a more comfortable settlement, adapting to urbanization. on the other hand, the poor people live in squatter settlements lacking adequate facilities and comfortable infrastructure. table 3: vehicle on the settlement (n=350) number of cars in the house number of motorcycles in the house item frequency percent frequency percent 1 216 61.7 208 59.4 2 62 17.7 77 22.0 3 26 7.4 12 3.4 4 2 .6 5 1.4 no 44 12.6 48 13.7 total 350 100.0 350 100.0 (source: abdullah, 2021) american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 162 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org table 3 shows that n = 216 respondents (61.7 percent) possessed one automobile for each settlement. at the same time, n = 22 respondents (12.6 per cent) claimed that they did not have an automobile. this scenario demonstrated that the malay community in this area believes the automobile is necessary for daily life. investigation showed that the number of automobiles was limited due to limited parking space (figure 5). this result is supported by table 4, demonstrating that only n = two respondents (0.6 per cent) own four automobiles in the settlement. due to the obvious dense population, parking space seems to be a critical problem. this factor is considered as one of the reasons why each family has a relatively limited number of automobiles. other factors, such as family economic factors, should also be considered. figure 5: limited parking in settlement areas (source: abdullah, 2021) the above-mentioned result is supported by table 4, indicating that n = 140 respondents (40%) parked their automobiles outside the settlement compound. according to observations, this situation is problematic for the traffic system since most automobiles are parked on the side of the road. due to the issue of dense settlement areas, parking spaces are in limited spaces for homeowners. in contrast, n = 70 responders (20.9%) have a car porch. observations also revealed that most automobile porches were placed below the house because most settlements here were built with the silt on the ground. as a result, the house's ground floor is widely used for a variety of functions, including parking and a store. table 4: vehicle storage (n = 350) item frequency per cent car porch 73 20.9 under the house 137 39.1 outside the house compound 140 40.0 total 350 100.0 during colonial rule in 1920, the british developed roads and railways to exploit our economic wealth. the roads connect rural and urban areas to improve the traffic on land. the construction of settlements began to concentrate along the roadways. this observation is substantiated by the findings of a study conducted by (kiroh & de silva, 2018). this scenario also prompted the development of cities near roadways. therefore, colonial urban planning started causing problems in the malay settlement. rivers are no longer a significant american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 163 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org element in urban planning. this also happened during the post-independence era. private developers introduced a new development design during the nep that placed the river area on the backside of the house. the front porch is no longer a unique characteristic of malay settlement. almost new settlements are constructed away from the river. this has become a problem as the river was no longer the primary transportation route after the industrial revolution. through observation, roads are now the primary mode of access in the study area as a result of kota bharu's colonialism planning. this discovery is corroborated by (idrus et al, 2011), who argued that roadways connect all major cities, even though cities continued to grow after independence for economic and development goals. as a result, observations show that rivers as communication water channels are diminishing. the community's link to the rivers is a future loss. these data are compatible with previous research (wicaksono, 2018), suggesting that rivers are no longer important for the community development component. observations also revealed that the settlement is now being constructed and renovated with the porch of the settlement no longer facing the river. the settlement pattern transformed and is no longer the same as at the beginning of the settlement. the dwellings were constructed in line with the porch facing the river, according to (wahid & harman shah, 1991). now, all of those characteristics is started to disappear (figure 6). figure 6: river is no longer be used as a front porch in malay settlements (source: abdullah, 2021) discussion and conclusion the existence of malay settlements pertains to the potential to construct their unique ecosystem. they developed an autonomous community with their own cultural, economic, and political systems without depending on other ethnicities,. the malay settlement reacted through ideas, ideology, ideas, and inspiration to the global consumers. they demonstrated that they could effectively adapt to their surroundings and form a community that strives for success in high quality of life. the destruction of the relationship between the environment and malay settlements has created vulnerable ecosystems. this is due to the malays' habit of american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 164 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org constructing settlements on the riverbank, demonstrating the relationship between nature and humans. the magnificence of the malay settlements directly connected to the river and the malay community and the settlements is expressed as a village in malay urbanism. malay urban living patterns are influenced by their needs and the manner of life of the community. this achievement is considered the lack of colonial influence, law, and development regulation, which is a concept of the capitalist system. however, malay settlement patterns gradually changed as the british introduced a new urban system. the river is the primary centre of malay settlements. the malay settlement can conserve energy because of its accessibility to the river,. due to the sheer smaller range on their surroundings, it can speed up the process of basic survival. all of the critical parts for their sustenance were focused around the malay settlement. however, urbanization gradually changed their culture and lifestyle, depending on the river,. the shifting activity of river life started to change their relationship. the malays' lifestyle and culture were gradually influenced due to the loss of the character of the place.. the malays' lifestyle gradually changed following the urbanization, causing them to fall behind in the economic sector. the malay eventually accepted the modern economic sector, which drastically changed the lifestyle pattern throughout the century. this caused many river-related activities rapidly decreased. as a consequence of this scenario, the malay identity, thought, and culture has been gradually disappeared. the rivers have been abandoned and no longer provide a significant benefit to the malay settlement. these changes eventually forced the malays to adapt their way of life and way of thinking in order to keep pace with urbanization. the malay worldview has been affected by the process of urbanization, which the malay take for granted or unconsciously. the malay settlements that had been in existence for three generations (80 years) faced the consequences of urbanization, causing their lifestyles to change. river activity eventually fail to benefit the malay to provide a reasonable settlement. instead, they were forced to compete with other races to live a better life. they are not victorious because other races, especially the chinese, have more urbanized experiences than the malays. to recapitulate, the relationship between the river and malay settlements has a significant effect on malay settlement patterns. the malay settlement is no longer concerned with the river's relationship, and the river is no longer a porch overlooking the river. this change is the consequence of the existence of roads that connect people. meanwhile, the malay community need to adapt their settlement in order to provide at least one area for vehicle parking. these changes increased the density of settlements. every day, the number american journal of agricultural science, engineering and technology 165 issn: 2158-8104 (online), 2164-0920 (print), 2021, vol. 5, issue.2 http://journals.e-palli.org of automobiles increases in tandem with the growing population. meanwhile, the infrastructure system is in poor condition, whichnot portraying the image in the city. reference adji syahputra, b. 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