Fodder Growing Machine

At a time when land and water are becoming scarce for agriculture, cultivating fodder on land is surely not justified. Hence, growing fodder in machines which requires very little space and yet produce over a 1000kggreen fodder daily, is emerging as the technology of the future

City-based Maharashtra Animal and Fishery Sciences University (Mafsu) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) and an agreement with an established pharmaceutical industry Ayurvet Ltd for conducting research trials and validating the findings on hydroponics machines developed by the industry for fodder production. Mafsu vice-chancellor Aditya Kumar Misra told TOI that the biggest advantage of the hydroponics machine or set up is that it doesn't require land and soil. The green fodder is grown inside a chamber with controlled conditions of temperature and humidity. "Above all, the whole process from seeds to fodder takes just seven days. The machine requires minimal water. Once validated, the technology will be particularly useful for dry land agriculture area like Vidarbha and Marthwada. Though the machine would produce 1000kg fodder daily, Mafsu will be taking only 200kg for its farm animals for research and validation of results," he said.

Misra said that besides collaborating in fodder research, the university will expand its horizons and work in the field of developing and testing herbal drugs for animals. "The state animal husbandry department had sought data on the results of third fodder machine sometime back. But at that time, we did not have our own data and had to supply the one available with other institutes. Now we would generate our own data and see which fodder (maize, barley, oat or some others) gives the best results and suits different animals," he said.

Ayurvet managing director, MJ Saxena, and executive director Anup Kalra were in city for signing the MOU. Saxena told TOI that the company had various models of the machine which could produce anything from 60kg to 1000kg per day and can cost anything from Rs3.5 lakh to Rs40 lakh. "Our machines have already given good results in animals, increasing the fertility, overall reproductivity of animals and milk yield. But we are allowing academic and research institutes to validate our results. Here too, we are giving only 200kg fodder daily to Mafsu and will be giving the remaining to progressive farmers to promote the use of machine by them in future," he said.

Kalra said that the fodder machine was part of a bigger project of 5Fs — food, feed, fodder, fuel and fertilizer. "We need to sustainably integrate livestock with agriculture for making agriculture a profitable venture," he said. "The machine conserves water, land and labour. Hence it is an ideal alternative to conventional method of fodder cultivation. And the biggest advantage of the machine is that it does not require highly qualified technical staff. It is simple to operate and maintain. It is also an ideal machine for developing mechanized paddy nurseries," Kalra added.

INFOGRAPHICS

Benefits of growing fodder in hydroponics machine

* Reproductivity efficiency of animal fed on hydroponics increases by 55%

* Hydroponic fodder or greens improves animal's body weight by 20%

* The machine grown fodder reduces cost of feeding per kg body weight by 18%

* In bulls, the semen volume increased by 10.04%, semen concentration increased by 1.23%

* Increase in overall nutritive value: Protein content in maize from conventional 8.5 to machine 19-20%, barley from 12 to 29% and in oat from 11.5% to 19%

* Conventional cultivation needs 50-70 lit/k while the machine needs 2-3 lit/kg. It also saves 47kg of feed /day.

* Conventional requirement of land for fodder cultivation is 37673 sq ft whereas the machine cultivation requires only 218 sq ft area.

* Ensures constant feed supply.

* Reduces labour requirement.

* Is a completely natural product.

* Machine can work on electricity, biogas or solar energy.

How the hydroponic machine works

* It is an automated system which works on water. (hydro means water, ponic means working)

* Seeds washed and soaked in water are placed in plastic trays in liquid nutrients under fixed temperature, humidity and light conditions and moved vertically and horizontally in a fixed schedule

* The walls and roofs of the chamber are made of puff panels and have provision of natural light as well as artificial light for photosynthesis

* The machine has a unique GSM microprocessor based controlling system which controls parameters like temperature, humidity, water automatically. The machine can be controlled through a mobile from anywhere. It also alerts user on any malfunctioning in same way

* The device has two openings. One for feeding seeds and another for harvesting the ready green feed mats

* Trays are placed on rollers for easy movement

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Taxonomy

• Conservation
• Sustainability
• Sustainable Farming