Preamble to the Description

Coconut palm botanically known as Cocos nucifera, L belongs to the family of Arecaceae (Palmae), which is an important member of monocotyledons. Coconut is a unique crop, where every part is useful in one-way or the other. The economic importance of the crop is quite evident from the fact that it is grown in more than 80 countries of the world. Coconut sap is being traditionally tapped from coconut in an un-organized manner and consumed largely by rural population. It is reported to clear urination, prevents jaundice and a good digestive juice.

Coconut sap or sugary solution (neera) is tapped from the inflorescence. An adult coconut palm produces 12 to 14 inflorescences per year, one inflorescence every month. The inflorescence of coconut is compound spadix where the main axis of peduncle is elongated and branched. The peduncles are covered by boat shaped woody bracts called as spathe (Fig 1). The coconut spadix is quite large and reaches up to a length of 1 meter.

Coconut sap (Neera)
Coconut Sap is a sugar-containing juice, contains mainly sugar, minerals and proteins (Baliga and Ivy, 1961; Nathanael, 1966, Devdas et ai, 1969; Lata and Kamala, 1966). It is a rich source of ascorbic acid and carbohydrate with sucrose as the major sugar. Coconut sap contains high amounts of essential elements such as N, P, K, Mg and micronutrients (B, Zn, Fe, Cu) (Anonymous 2013). Sap yield is highly variable and it varies from day to day, season to season, spadix to spadix and tree to tree. Average yield of sap is 1.59 litre (0.6-3 1) per palm per day. Apart from health drink, coconut sugar/jaggary/honey which is the main product of sap is good for both diabetics and non-diabetics. It does not induce hyperglycemia or high blood sugar because it has a low glycemic index (GI). It is also good for weight maintenance, therefore prevents obesity.

The neera is rich source of nutrients therefore it is highly prone to fermentation both by enzymatic and microbial action. Fresh neera when left exposed to atmosphere undergoes initial lactic acid fermentation, middle alcoholic fermentation and final acetic fermentation consequent on the action of micro organisms (Atputharajah et al., 1986). Neera, when tapped fresh, possesses a tolerable odour which turns harsh on fermentation and makes it unpalatable despite being nutritious. So there is a need for collection of fresh and unfermented neera from the tree so as to serve it as health drink or for the preparation of value added products.

Prior art

Traditionally the neera/sap is collected from locally grown plants including coconut, oil palm, date palm, raphia palm and kithul palm. The tapper identifies a healthy tree with a half matured (approximately 45 day's old inflorescence after emergence from leaf axis) spadix for tapping. The spadix to be tapped will be tied with coir or plastic rope from base to 3/4th of tip to prevent it from opening. Tapper cuts off a thin slice, from the top end of the unopened spadix. He strokes the spadix with a mallet daily in the morning and evening for a period of 8-10 days. At the end of this the sap starts oozing out from the peduncles. Since the coconut spadix in the tree is at an angle of 20° to 45° to the main axis (can be seen in figure 5), at times the sap oozed from the cut end will seep through the inter-peduncle spaces, between the peduncles and spathe or flow along the outer surface of spathe. To check this internal seepage, the tapper applies a type of clay soil, a gummy material or leaf extract on the surface and sides of the cut end. To prevent the flow of sap along the outer surface of spathe, a coconut lamina is tied along the circumference of the cut end through which the sap trickles down to the earthen pot. Thus the sap collection method is not well organized. Furthermore, the tapper applies a coat of lime inside the pot believed to prevent the fermentation of the sap. In this method, the sap which is collected in the open pots emanates volatile substances which attract lot of harmful insects of coconut. Further the sap is contaminated by ants, pollen and dust particles. Thus it is not a fresh and hygienic sap.

Earlier an attempt was made to develop an adaptor to collect the sap from coconut (Narayanan et al., 1977). This consists of a short bent arm with a split end which is fitted tightly on the cut end of the spadix with a belt or other suitable fastening device. The bent arm is connected to a vertical tube the lower end of which is connected to a screw cap bottle. One of the draw backs of this device is that the insertion of an adapter with bent pipe to the spadix forms a raised portion, which prevents the free flow of sap from the cut end to the adapter. The sap accumulated near the cut end of the spadix either seeps through inter-peduncle spaces or gets discharged from the cracks and crevices of spathe. This necessitated the need for development of a device which facilitates the free flow of sap from the cut end of spadix to the container in a more hygienic manner. 4. Description of the devise

The Neera collection device consists of a connector, adaptor tube, connecting pipe, storage device and cooling device.

Connector: A PVC pipe of length 50 mm and diameter equal to the diameter of spadix excluding spathe (approx. 35 to 65mm). This pipe is inserted in to an end cap of the same diameter making the connector closed at one end. Grooves with sharp pointed edges are made at the open end of the pipe. A 11 mm diameter hole is made at 20 mm above the open end of the connector.

Adaptor tube: A 10 mm tapering tubular adaptor (hard plastic pipe) is fixed at the opening of the hole as shown in Fig. 3.

Connector pipe: A transparent pipe of 10 mm diameter of required length that fits to the tubular adaptor.

Storage device: Zipped polythene covers or screw capped plastic bottle. A tapering tip is attached to the screw cap for easy connection of connector pipe. Cooling device: An ice box of capacity sufficient enough to hold ice cubes and neera collection container.

Manner in which it is to be performed

• Spadix to be tapped is tied with coir/plastic rope and a small portion is sliced offfromthetop.
• The spadix is gently stroked with a mallet in the morning and evening.
• Sap starts oozing out from the cut end, after a period of 8 to 10 days of stroking the spadix.
• At this stage, the connector of the neera collection device is tightly screwed to the spadix excluding spathe in such a way that the hard tubular tube comes in contact with spadix and faces the lower side of the cut end as shown in the figure 4. Since, the connector is tightly screwed encompassing all the peduncles, it ensures no inter-peduncle free space hence; there is no seepage of the sap in between the peduncles. All the sap flows freely towards the tubular tube which is on the lower side of the cut. Therefore, there is no need to apply soil, wax or leaf extracts to the cut surface as done in the traditional methods.

• A transparent pipe is connected to the free end of the hard tubular tube and the other end is connected to a screw cap container or zipped plastic envelope.

• The sap oozed from the cut end of the spadix flows out through the hard tubular tube and is guided to the neera collection container through the transparent connecting tube as shown in the figure 5.

• The container is placed in an ice box with ice cubicles. Fresh and hygienic neera is obtained in the morning and evening.

• Every day in the morning and evening the device is removed from the spadix and washed thoroughly. Since, all the parts can be separated it is easy to clean. Each time a small portion of the spadix is sliced and the device is reconnected as stated above with ease.

• As this whole system is air tight, it will not attract insects, ants, pollen and dust particles as in the traditional way of collection. Thus, by using this device the sap can be collected in a fresh and hygienic way.

• It is an ideal and healthy ready to serve fresh juice.

Advantage of the newly developed device:

1. Fresh and hygienic neera is obtained in the morning and evening.

2. The sap can be collected in a fresh and hygienic way. Hence, it is a ready to serve drink and products like sugar, jaggery and honey can be prepared without the addition of lime and other chemicals.

3. Since, all the parts can be separated it is easy to clean.

4. There is no chance of contamination by insects, ants and dust particles. Moreover, neera contains lot of volatiles hence, it attracts lot of harmful insects of coconut. Since, this device is airtight there is less emission of volatiles.

5. There is free flow of sap to the container.

6. The sap can be preserved in the same way as it is obtained by keeping it in the ice box.

7. The device is not only suitable for the collection of sap from coconut but can also be easily connected to other sap yielding plants.

8. It is a very cheap device and prepared from locally available material

References

Anonymous 2013. Coconut Sap, Who Knew?, http://www.coconutsecret.com web site Atputharajah J D., Widanapathirana S. and Samarajeewa U. 1986. Microbiology and biochemistry of natural fermentation of coconut palm sap. Food Microbiology (3), 273-280. Baliga B.P. and A.C. Ivy, 1961. Pasteurization of palm sap (Neera), Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 9 (1961), pp. 149-151. Full Text via Cross
Ref View Record in Scopus Cited By in Scopus (1) Devdas, K. Sundari and A. Susheela, 1969. Effects of supplementation of two school

lunch programmes with neera on the nutritional status of children, Journal of Nutrition and Dietetics (6), 29-36. Lata M and S. Kamala, S 1966. Palm gur in nutrition, Journal of Nutrition and

Dietetics (3), 18-22. Narayanan K., Joseph P T. and Nathan H S. 1977. An apparatus for tapping toddy
from toddy yielding plants. Govt, of India, The India Patent Office, Calcutta 17 - International classification, A23n 1/00; 1977). Nathanael W.R.N. 1966. Ceylon coconut Planters' Review (4), 8

5. Claims
I claim,

1) to have developed a simple device to collect neera (inflorescence sap) in fresh and hygienic manner from coconut inflorescence. It consists of a plastic or PVC connector of different diameters (35 to 65 mm), according to the size of the inflorescence. Sharp edged groves of 3 mm are made at the open end of the connector, which fits into the inflorescence, while the other end of the connector is closed.

2) a hard tapering tubular adaptor of 10 mm diameter, fitted 20 mm above the grooved end of the connector in claim 1 drains the sap to the plastic pipe of 12 mm diameter connected at the other end, which transports the neera produced to the collecting container.

3) the neera collection containers- zipped bag or screw capped bottle (capacity 1000 to 1500 ml), connected to the adapter as in claim 1 can be housed in an ice box for keeping the sap fresh.

4) the sap collected using the device in claim 1 is hygienic, fresh and healthy, ready to serve natural drink and also can be used for the preparation of natural coconut sugar, jaggery or honey without the addition of lime or other chemicals

5) the said device in claims 1 to 4 is not only suitable for the collection of sap from coconut palm but can also be easily connected to other sap yielding plants.