Tajudeen Abiodun Ishola

Effect of adding palm oil mill decanter cake slurry with regular turning operation on the composting process and quality of compost from oil palm empty fruit bunches.

Formation of compost from oil palm empty fruit bunches (EFB) and decanter cake slurry by adding palm oil mill effluent (POME) with regular turning operation was investigated. The experiment was conducted in a commercial composting plant under the normal production process. The addition of decanter cake slurry has hastened the composting process of the EFB. The C/N ratio after 51 days for the mature compost with the decanter cake slurry was 18.65 while that of the matured compost without the decanter cake slurry remained high at 28.96. The compost formed from the addition of decanter cake to EFB and POME had 46.4% nitrogen, 17.9% phosphorus, 17.7% potassium and 23.1% calcium more than that without decanter cake. The use of compost produced from EFB, POME and decanter cake slurry could solve more environmental problems and enhance economic benefits in the oil palm industry.

A NOVEL VARIABLE RATE PNEUMATIC FERTILIZER APPLICATOR

The canopy prevents the use of global positioning system based fertilizer applicators in oil palm plantations. Hence, a radio frequency identification triggered variable rate pneumatic fertilizer system was developed for this application. A real-time embedded system was used as the core controller, LabVIEW software was used to program and coordinate the operations of the embedded system and the host computer. A speed measuring unit was used to provide feedback to the system. A field test was conducted to examine the response time. The sensors were calibrated in the laboratory and the measurement linearity had regression coefficients close to 1. Two to three seconds were required for the device to respond to changes in application rate. It is expected that this approach will become an alternative in plantations where the canopy hinders proper application of global positioning systems.

Calibration and Accuracy Determination of a Microwave Type Sensor for Measuring Grain Flow

Impact type grain flow sensor for crop yield monitoring is known to have problem of some thrown grain by the elevator conveyor in a combine not hitting the sensing impact plate. New technology of microwave solid flow sensor was used to solve the problem of impact-type sensor. A calibration stand with its instrumentation systems to stimulate the actual operation of the clean grain auger in a rice combine had been designed and constructed in this study for the purpose of conducting the calibration and evaluation study of the sensor. Two different solid flow sensor orientations and three different solid flow sensor extrusions were investigated in order to find the best positioning of the sensor on the chute for the measurement. Results from the conducted tests indicates that the best sensor positioning is on totally flat ground at 180o orientation and 8 cm extrusion of the chute cross section (R2=0.9400). Then, the solid flow sensor was tested at seven chute pitch angle positions (i.e-4.5o, -3.0o, -1.5o, 0o, +1.5o, + 3.0o, and +4.5 o), seven chute roll angle positions (i.e-4.5o,-3.0o, -1.5 o, 0o, +1.5o, +3.0 o, and +4.5o). Finally, accuracy tests undertaken to compare the real time measurements against the average flow measurements. ANOVA test shows that both pitch angle and roll angle positions have significant effects on the measurement accuracy of the sensor. The measurement errors increased with increasing roll angles and increasing pitch angle. Conclusively, this conducted laboratory study was able to quantify the measurement accuracy of the SWR Solid Flow sensor for real-time measurement of grain flow under a simulated laboratory rice combine test set-up.