Browsing by Author "KARTHIK, GOTTIMUKULA"
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ThesisItem Open Access DEVELOPMENT OF MANUAL OPERATED WOMEN FRIENDLY PADDY TRANSPLANTER(Acharya N.G. Ranga Agricultural University, 2018) KARTHIK, GOTTIMUKULA; SRINIVAS, IPaddy is the staple food for more than 60% of the world’s population. India has largest area under paddy cultivation of about 43.38 million hectare with the total production of about 104.30 million tonne (Statistical Year Book India, 2017). Transplanting is the largely practiced method of establishment of paddy in Indian wetland conditions, and it is mostly done manually. This method is a tedious and time consuming operation, requires about 250-300 man-h ha-1 contributing 25% of the total labour required for cultivation (Singh et al., 1985). Shortage of labour, due to rapid urbanisation, is the main factor leading transplanting to mechanisation. Self propelled paddy transplanters are available in market at higher costs which cannot be afforded by small and marginal farmers, who comprises a major share in Indian agriculture. Therefore, a low cost manual operated two-row paddy transplanter was developed and evaluated in ICAR-CRIDA, Hyderabad. The transplanter was developed with row spacing of 250 mm. Four bar mechanism was adopted for operating fingers which are powered by ground wheel through chain and sprocket. The fabrication cost of transplanter was Rs. 4000 weighing around 15 kg which can be easily pulled by a women labour. Root washed seedlings of 21 DAS were used for testing the performance of the mechanism (Kavitkar et al., 2017). The time interval between the last puddling and transplanting was 24 hours in 2-4 cm of standing water (RNAM, 1983). Performance evaluation of transplanter was done at different average forward speeds of 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1 and 1.25 km h-1 and the results are analysed statistically with Randomised Block Design. Ergo-economical comparison of manual operated paddy transplanter with conventional transplanting was also done. Optimisation of forward speed was done considering transplanting, machine, ergonomic and operating cost parameters. The mean hill spacing in a row at forward speeds of 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1 and 1.25 km h-1 was 25.60 cm, 25.07 cm and 24.40 cm with 2-3 seedlings per hill at transplanting depth of 3.53 cm, 4.57 cm and 5.35 cm respectively. Total defective hills at different forward speeds of 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1 and 1.25 km h-1 were 10.06%, 8.04% and 11.89% respectively with transplanting efficiencies of 89.94%, 91.96% and Name of the author : GOTTIMUKULA KARTHIK Title of the thesis : “DEVELOPMENT OF MANUAL OPERATED WOMEN FRIENDLY PADDY TRANSPLANTER” Degree to which it is submitted : Master of Technology Faculty : Agricultural Engineering & Technology Major field of study : FARM MACHINERY AND POWER ENGINEERING Major advisor : Dr. I. SRINIVAS University : Acharya N. G. Ranga Agricultural University Year of submission : 2018 x 88.11%. Effective field capacity at forward speeds of 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1 and 1.25 km h-1 was recorded as 0.249 ha day-1, 0.313 ha day-1 and 0.373 ha day-1 with field efficiencies of 82.92%, 78.24% and 74.53% respectively. Pulling force for operating transplanter was observed to be 93.15 N at forward speed of 1.25 km h-1 followed by 75.50 N at 1.00 km h-1 and 65.70 N at 0.75 km h-1. Overall discomfort rating (ODR) and total body part discomfort score (BPDS) at forward speeds of 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1, 1.25 km h-1 of manual operated paddy transplanter and conventional transplanting was 4.50, 5.33, 7.17 and 7.33 and 38.17, 46.83, 61.67 and 74.5 respectively. Maximum body pain was observed by subjects in upper back followed by upper arm, shoulder, waist, thighs and legs in mechanical paddy transplanter. In manual transplanting maximum pain was observed by subjects in waist and upper arm followed by lower back, upper back, shoulder, thighs and legs. The operating costs were Rs. 5530 ha-1, Rs. 4400 ha-1 and Rs. 3692 ha-1 at 0.75 km h-1, 1.00 km h-1 and 1.25 km h-1 forward speeds respectively. The savings in cost of operation of paddy transplanter was found more than 21% compared to conventional transplanting which costs Rs.7000 ha-1. The mean forward speed of 1.00 km h-1 of manual operated paddy transplanter was found optimum as it gave desired row spacing of 25 cm, with transplanting efficiency and effective field capacity of 91.96% and 0.313 ha day-1 respectively, at an operational cost of Rs. 4400 ha-1. The operation of the machine at this forward speed requires low pulling force of 65.7 N, with the mean overall discomfort rating and total body discomfort ratings were 5.33 and 46.83 respectively. Keywords: Mechanical transplanting, manual operated, paddy transplanter, postural discomfort, cost economics.