ABSTRACT Biomass is naturally abundant in rural communities but is generally considered to be a waste in most developing countries of the world where it is used inefficiently in its traditional form. The effective utilization of these materials offers many advantages among which is a renewable and sustainable energy feedstock for the production of solid fuel – briquettes - for heating applications. Attempts have been made in developing machines for commercial briquetting of biomass in deve...
ABSTRACT As the prices of building materials in the country continue to increase sharply, there is growing need to source local materials as alternative for farm building constructions. This project investigates the performance of a cylindrical shell built of laterized concrete for storage of foodgrains or water. L In order to optimize the mix ratio of the constituent materials that will produce maximum strength, a mathematical model which relates the strength of laterized concrete and its ...
Abstract Hydrological models are useful tools for prediction and understanding of hydrological phenomena which underpin watershed resources utilization. A watershed model simulates hydrological processes in a more holistic manner across the entire watershed area. Most watershed models are fairly complex; interactions among watershed hydrological components are essentially nonlinear and take place on a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. The Watershed Resources Management (WRM) model w...
ABSTRACT The present study designed, constructed and undertook the performance evaluation of a post harvest passive solar crop dryer for drying agricultural produce. The solar crop dryer consists of a solar collector with dimensions 110 x 61 x 10cm, a drying chamber measuring 102 x54cm, a movable heat storage unit with the dimensions 40 x 35 x 13cm and drying trays each having an area of 1806cm2. The performance evaluation was conducted using three cropstomatoes, pepper and okra which are loc...
Abstract Background: Changes of land cover modify the characteristics of habitat, host-vector interaction and consequently infection rates of disease causing agents. In this paper, we report variations in tsetse distribution patterns, abundance and infection rates in relation to habitat types and age in the Maasai Steppe of northern Tanzania. In Africa, Tsetse-transmitted trypanosomiasis negatively impacted human life where about 40 million people are at risk of contracting the disease with d...
The study aimed at identifying animal manure which influences soil health indicators (microbial abundance), was conducted at Lilongwe university of Agriculture and Natural Resources (LUANAR) crop and soil science student farm. The experiment had four treatments; cattle manure., goat manure,pig manure and chicken Manuel. Treatments were arranged in RCB replicated three times. The ANOVA shows that there was significant difference (p