Agriculture Engineering Mains Syllabus
The JPSC Assistant Conservator of Forest Examination Mains syllabus for Agriculture Engineering subjects includes:
Agriculture Engineering
PAPER I
Section A
- Soil and Water Conservation: Scope of soil and water conservation. Mechanics and types of erosion, their causes. Mechanics and types of erosion, their causes. Rainfall, runoff, and sedimentation relationships and their measurement. Soil erosion control measures – biological and engineering including stream bank protection vegetative barriers, contour bunds, contour trenches, contour stone walls, contour ditches, terraces, outlets, and grassed waterways. Gully control structures – temporary and permanent – design of permanent soil conservation structures such as chute, drop, and drop inlet spillways. Design of farm ponds and percolation
ponds. Principles of flood control-flood routing. Watershed Management – investigation, planning, and implementation – selection of priority areas and watershed work plan, water harvesting, and moisture conservation. Land development – levelling, estimation of 19 earth volumes, and costing. Wind Erosion process – design for shelter belts and wind brakes and their management. Forest (Conservation) Act. - .Aerial Photography and Remote Sensing: Basic characteristics of photographic images, interpretation keys, equipment for interpretation, imagery interpretation for land use, geology, soil, and forestry. Remote sensing – merits and demerits of conventional and remote sensing approaches. Types of satellite images, fundamentals of satellite image interpretation, techniques of visual and digital interpretations for soil, water and land use management. Use of GIS in planning and development of watersheds, forests including forest cover, water resources, etc.
Section B
- Irrigation and Drainage: Sources of water for irrigation. Planning and design of minor irrigation projects. Techniques of measuring soil moisture – laboratory and in situ, Soil water plant relationships. Water requirement of crops. Planning conjunctive use of surface and groundwater. Measurement of irrigation water, measuring devices – orifices, weirs, and flumes. Methods of irrigation – surface, sprinkler and drip, fertigation. Irrigation efficiencies and their estimation. Design and construction of canals, field channels, underground pipelines, head gates, diversion boxes, and structures for road crossing. Occurrence of groundwater, hydraulics of wells, types of wells (tube wells and open wells), and their construction. Well, development and testing. Pumps-types, selection and installation. Rehabilitation of sick and failed wells. Drainage causes waterlogging and salt problems. Methods of drainage- drainage of
irrigated and unirrigated lands, design of surface, sub-surface, and vertical drainage systems. Improvement and utilization of poor quality water. Reclamation of saline and alkali soils. Economics of irrigation and drainage systems. Use of wastewater for irrigation – standards of wastewater for sustained irrigation, feasibility and economics. - Agricultural Structures: Site selection, design, and construction of farmstead farmhouse, cattle shed, dairy bam, poultry shed, hog housing, machinery and implement shed, and storage structures for food grains, feed, and forage. Design and construction of fences and farm roads. Structures for plant environment – greenhouses, playhouses, and shade houses. Common building materials used in construction – timber, brick, stone, tiles, concrete, etc and their properties. Water supply, drainage, and sanitation system.
PAPER- II
Section A
- Farm Power and Machinery: Agricultural mechanization and its scope. Sources of farm power – animate and electro-mechanical. Thermodynamics, construction and working of internal combustion engines. Fuel, ignition, lubrication, cooling and governing system of IC engines. Different types of tractors and power tillers. Power transmission, ground drive, power take-off (p.t.o.) and control systems. Operation and maintenance of farm machinery for primary and secondary tillage. Traction theory. Sowing transplanting and interculture implements and tools. Plant protection equipment – spraying and dusting. Harvesting, threshing and combining equipment. Machinery for earth moving and land development – methods and cost estimation.
Ergonomics of man-machine system. Machinery for horticulture and agro-forestry, feeds and forages. Haulage of agricultural and forest produce. - Agro-energy: Energy requirements of agricultural operations and agro-processing. Selection, installation, safety and maintenance of electric motors for agricultural applications. Solar (thermal and photovoltaic), wind and bio-gas energy and their utilization in agriculture. Gasification of biomass for running IC engines and for electric power generation. Energy-efficient cooking stoves and alternate cooking fuels. Distribution of electricity for agricultural and agro-industrial applications.
Section B
- Agricultural Process Engineering: Post-harvest technology of crops and its scope. Engineering properties of agricultural produce and by-products. Unit operations – clearing grading, size
reduction, densification, concentration, drying/dehydration, evaporation, filtration, freezing and packaging of agricultural products and by20 products. Material handling equipment belt and screw conveyors, bucket elevators, their capacity and power requirement. Processing of milk and dairy products – homogenization, cream separation, pasteurization, sterilization, spray and roller drying, butter making, ice cream, cheese and Shrikhand manufacture. Waste and by-product utilization – rice husk, rice bran, sugarcane bagasse, plant residues and coir pith. - Instrumentation and computer applications in Agricultural Engineering: Electronic devices and their characteristics- rectifiers, amplifiers, oscillators, multivibrators. Digital circuits –
sequential and combinational system. Application of microprocessors in data acquisition and control of agricultural engineering processes measurement systems for level, flow, strain, force, torque, power, pressure, vacuum and temperature. Computers – introduction, input/output devices, central processing unit, memory devices, operating systems, processors, keyboards and printers. Algorithms, flowchart specification, programme translation and problem analysis in Agricultural Engineering. Multimedia and Audio-Visual aids.