Formulation and evaluation of eco-friendly handmade herbal mosquito repellent cone

A mosquito belongs to the insect-family Culicidae, order Diptera, suborder Nematocera and class Insecta. Mosquito act as vector which carries many disease causing parasites and viruses. Preventing mosquito spread is immensely necessary to stop spread of various contagious diseases. Now days, uses of plant based mosquito repellent have increased as synthetic repellents contains many noxious chemicals which can cause possible toxicity like skin toxicity and causes swelling, redness, itching and many health problems. The herbal mosquito repellent cones were prepared by using saw dust, cow dung, gum acacia, neem powder, eucalyptus powder and lemon grass powder. Lemon grass has insecticidal property. Saw dust increases the combustion. Gum acacia act as binder. Cow dung shows antioxidant and mosquito repellent property. Neem has mosquito repellent property. Herbal mosquito repellent cone were prepared by hand rolling method. The evaluation parameters of herbal mosquito repellent cone contain burning time (min), smoke visibility, odor, irritation test, ash weight (g.) and mosquito repellent activity. The formulation LNC containing lemon grass powder along with neem powder and cow dung in equal ratio shows best activity and maximum effectiveness in reducing mosquito number in comparison with all other formulations. In present study, the powders used in formulation were herbal based and eco-friendly and producing no side-effect on use. Here an attempt has been made to find out the novel formulation of different herbal plant powders containing alone and with combination for mosquito repellent cone.

Effect of Different Mulching Materials on the Growth and Yield of Green Bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) in Nfonta the Western Highlands of Cameroon

Mulching is a common technique used across the world by farmers to especially conserve soil moisture in vegetable production but farmers in Nfonta and the entire western highlands of Cameroon have not practiced the uses of mulching. In this experiment, a randomized complete block designe with 5 treatments and 3 replications was set up to study the effect of elephant grass, saw dust and white plastic as mulching materials on the growth and yield of green bean (Phaseolusvulgaris L.) in Nfonta. Data was collected on plant height; number of leaves per plants, leaf area index and yield of mature pods per plant. Data was analyzed using one way ANOVA from stat graphics centurion xv and means were separation using the Fischer least significant difference (LSD) test at 95% confidence interval. Results showed white plastic, and elephant grass mulches to have significantly (P<0.05) affected the growth and yield of green bean. White plastic mulched plants exhibited the highest growth parameters and subsequently produced the highest yield of 12.00 mature pods per plant with average pod length of 11.97cm and average mature pod weight of 4.22g compared to the other mulch treatments. There were no significant (P>0.05) differences in yield of green bean grown with no mulch (control), saw dust mulch and corn stalk mulch. Corn stalk mulched bean plants produced the lowest yield of 7.83 mature pods per plant with average pod length of 9.17cm and an average mature pod weight of 2.83 which was not much different from that produced by the control. These results call for more investigations to the potentials of white plastic as best mulch material for achieving optimum green beans yield in Nfonta and the entire western highlands of Cameroon.

Aerodynamic Characteristics of the Combustion Process of Sawdust in a Vortex Furnace with Counter-Swirling Flows

The aim of this work is to study the working processes of burning the low-quality fuels, namely, the saw dust in the swirling-type furnaces with an opposite twisted motion of the air. The goal was achieved using the physical and mathematical modeling of the flows interaction. The article presented the results of numerical study of aerodynamic characteristics of burning the saw dust in the swirling-type furnace with the opposite twisted air flows. For the research, the facility was used for the saw dust burning with the air supply into the lower and upper zones of burning. The most essential result of the work was modeling of the working process at the ratio of the flows of the primary air and secondary air without the fuel admixture, equal to 0.2. The tangential rate of the flow changed according to the horizontal sections from 3-5 m/s to 40-42 m/s and with respect to the furnace height from 51 m/s to 30 m/s. The average angular rate of the mixture changed relatively the furnace height in the ranges of 171-500 l/s to 100—300 l/s. The significance of the results obtained consists in determination of the possibility of increasing the efficiency of the work of the furnace facilities at the expense of the introduction of the primary and secondary air flows. In this situation, the optimal ratio of consumptions of primary and secondary air was 0.2. Thus, in this work the consumption of primary air was 1.285 kg/s, the consumption of the secondary air was 0.255 kg/s.

Partial Replacement of Cement in Concrete with Granite Powder and Fine Aggregate with Saw Dust Ash and Quarry Dust

The partial replacement of cement and fine aggregate with granite powder and saw dust ash, quarry dust when it is able for sustainable development is characterized by application, we came to know that a lot of damage is done to environment in the manufacturing of cement that the ton of cement manufacture releases half ton of co2 and control of the granite powder same way granite powder and saw dust is cheaper in cost. In this investigation of granite slurry and saw dust was used to partial substitute in proportions varying from 10%, 20%, 30% by weight to cement in concrete and tested from compressive strength, tensile strength and flexure strength. Concrete cubes measuring. 150 x 150 x 150 mm were cast and their compressive strength, tensile strength and flexure strength is evaluation at 7, 14, 21, 28 days. It was observed that replacement at 10% of cement by weight with granite powder in concrete was the most effective in increasing compressive and flexural strength compare to other ratios. The test results were plotted for 10% ratio of granite slurry and saw dust having great compressive strength, tensile strength and flexure strength compared to 20%, 30% ratio. So it can be concluded that when locally available granite slurry and saw dust is a good partial replacement to concrete and improves compressive, tensile, workability, flexure characteristics of concrete, while simultaneously offsetting the overall cost of concrete substantially. Keywords: Granite waste, saw dust ash, sound absorption, compressive strength, flexibility, workability, Quarry Dust.

Eco-friendly Approach for the Management of Rust Red Flour Beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) on Wheat Grains

Background: Wheat is the major cereal crop occupying an eminent place in economy of our country. About 10-15% wheat is lost annually due to ravages of stored grains pests during storage. The principal stored grain pest of wheat is red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum (Herbst) which is a cosmopolitan and most serious pest. Methods: The present investigation was carried out in the Entomology Laboratory during 2020-2021, College of Agriculture, Central Agricultural University, Imphal to investigate eco-friendly management of rust red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum on wheat grains by using different inert materials viz., paddy straw, paddy husk ash, cow dung ash, coal ash, sand dust, saw dust, boric acid and one untreated control with the dose of 1.5 gm/100 gm of wheat grains. Result: The results showed that the boric acid exhibited 100 per cent adult mortality of T. castaneum within 5 days after treatment. Afterwards the next best treatment was cow dung ash, coal ash shows the very effective in treatment in the adult emergence and grain weight loss. Whereas, saw dust shows the least effective treatment in the controlling adult emergence.