Details: About four years ago Shaji observed the guava fruits in his garden were being eaten by bats and birds before ripening. This made him think of capping the fruits to protect them. Manual capping was possible only on small trees. This led him to think and develop a fruit capper for tall trees. His fruit capper is a small tool, which can be used for capping or bagging fruits and vegetables to protect from birds, squirrels and insects. Any kind of cover-plastic, paper, cloth etc. could be used for this purpose. It is useful for fruits and vegetables like guava, cocoas, mangos, grapes, sapota (chikku), passion fruit, bitter gourd, snake gourd, etc. A plastic or paper cover is fixed on the holder with rubber band, the holder is placed around the fruit /vegetable and knob at the bottom is pulled. The pin releases a rubber band along with the cover. The length of the tool can be increased using additional pipe or pole. This tool is made of different sizes of PVC pipes and a lever, pin- knob etc.

Innovator: Shaji Varghese, Ernakulum, Kerala

State: Ernakulum, Kerala

Funding agency: Department of Science and Technology, Govt of India

Implementing institute: National Innovation Foundation India (NIF), info.nif@nifindia.org